


With Great Power

by GraeWrites



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Airplanes, Airports, Attempted Kidnapping, Attempted robbery, Gen, Guns, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic, Panic Attack, Spider bites, Spiders, Threats, Violence, but no spoilers for any actual Spiderman franchise, cursing, lying, more just the concept of Spiderman, spider-man au, violence mention
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2019-10-02 06:11:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 34,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17259017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraeWrites/pseuds/GraeWrites
Summary: Thomas Sanders is just a regular social media personality. But when he's bit by a spider during filming one of his YouTube videos, he finds his life turning upside down--no matter how much he and the aspects of his personality may wish otherwise.What started as a few biological changes create a much bigger ripple in Thomas's life, and his Sides must confront what this means for themselves as well as Thomas.  He'd always believed himself to be someone who tried to do the right thing. But an online threat starts having much larger implications, and Thomas and his Sides must figure out what it means to be a "hero", and just how much they're willing to risk.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I went to see the new Spider-Man movie and got inspired. This fic is not based on the new movie, so no spoilers there; just inspired this project. It was one of those things that started as a small idea and soon snowballed into a locomotive trying to run me over with all the ideas I started getting for it. First multichapter project for this fandom, so… I’m both scared and excited to undertake this project. Deeply appreciate anyone willing to be along for the ride. <3 Extra shout-out to creativenostalgiastuff, vigilantvirgil, and everyone else who offered writing advice, reassurance, and encouragement through the chaos of my nerves and self-doubt in writing this first chapter. I appreciate the heck out of it.

When Thomas wakes up to the sun streaming in through the blinds of his bedroom window late Saturday morning, he contemplates rolling over and trying to go back to sleep. Filming for the next Cartoon Therapy had gone late into the night last night, and Thomas hadn’t collapsed into his bed until somewhere around 3 in the morning. He blindly reaches a hand out for his phone tossed haphazardly amidst the covers and squints blearily at it to check the time.

It’s almost noon. Besides, he has a text from Joan saying they have an idea about how fix part of the script that just hadn’t been working for them last night. They were already two days behind schedule. Thomas figures it’s probably time to get rolling.

He shoots a text back to Joan telling them to swing by whenever and they could head to the location. Kyle and Terrence were scheduled to stop by to film their part of the episode in the early evening, so if they hurried, they could probably knock out the script problem in the scene between Elliot and Picani before they arrived. If they worked late enough, they could maybe even make up one of the days they were behind.

 _Best laid plans_ , says a vaguely foreboding voice in Thomas’s head. He sits up and rakes a hand through his fading purple hair. He sends out a quick tweet, _Busy day of filming ahead! Can’t wait for you guys to see this one,_ because he knows he won’t be online much at all today and locks his phone before quickly getting dressed.

He stumbles half-awake to the kitchen and pops a bagel into the toaster. He mindlessly turns on the television with the remote he’d set on the counter from the night before. The voice of a female news anchor fills the quiet apartment as Thomas turns to the refrigerator.

“ _—night. Police are interrogating the suspect now. According to preliminary reports, the man driving the bus claims to have no memory of the incident. The driver of the other vehicle is in critical condition, and two civilian deaths have been confirmed so far. The Congressman believed to be the actual target has issued no formal statement at this time, but he is expected to hold a press conference this afternoon.”_

Thomas sighs as he reads the headline at the bottom of the screen. _Bus Crash Is Suspected Assassination Attempt_ it reads in big block letters as the camera switches to an aerial view of the crash. Thomas’s chest twists with compassion.

The scene switches back to a different news anchor. “ _This is another installment in a long line of increasing instances of violent crimes and death brought about by people claiming to have no memory of the incident itself. And we have here with us an expert in—"_

He’s pulled from the broadcast at the sound of the toaster popping up and a subsequent _ding_ from his phone. It’s a text from Joan. _We’re here_. Thomas switches the television off and grabs his keys and phone, thinking in the back of his mind that maybe the next video they do ought to be a new installment of “reasons to smile”.

…

“Picani, there’s… something I should probably tell you,” Joan says, delivering their line as Elliot. There’s a pause, and then they shake their head. “Wait, I want to re-try that.”

Thomas gives Joan a patient smile and nods. Joan repeats the line, adjusting where they put emphasis and how long they paused before breaking character and giving a satisfied nod. They were happier with that take, and Thomas admits that their delivery fit the moment a bit better as well.

The lighting fixtures in front of the couch cramps the relatively small office space, and Thomas glances around the room as Joan responds to a text they apparently received from Terrence about costume design for Corbin. The blue Stitch poster, framed still from Spongebob, and Steven Universe merchandise hanging on the wall pop against the cream colored paint above the brown couch. It stirs—unexpectedly, although not for the first time—something inside of Thomas. A reminder of where he is, what he was getting to do every day…

Ten years ago, if you’d asked him, he never would have guessed that he’d be making YouTube videos full time. He’d graduated with a degree in chemical engineering, after all. But then he’d discovered Vine, and one thing led to another… and here he was. Writing, acting, directing, and producing videos for real life people who were incredibly kind and supportive of him. His life had taken several crazy twists, especially in recent years, but he liked where he was. He still had plenty of dreams and aspirations, but he was putting content out in the world that was making a difference to people. Making people smile. He was getting to do… really freaking cool things. Every single day.

“You okay, man?” Joan asks, breaking into his thoughts.

Thomas blinks and shakes his head. “Yeah. Sorry. Just zoned out, I guess.”

Joan quirks an eyebrow at him. “We can take a break if you need it.”

“I’m good,” Thomas replies, swiping the bangs out of his eyes. “Any update from Terrence?”

“He’s on his way.” Joan adjusts the hem of their skirt. “Kyle said he’d be a couple minutes late, but I told him that was fine.”

Thomas nods. “No, yeah. It’s all good.” He flips through a couple pages of the script, re-reading a few lines. Joan arches their eyebrows at him, but Thomas purses his lips in thought before looking back up. “I was thinking last night about this scene where they talk about Mitchell—" Thomas glances down at the script in his hands and cuts himself off at the sight of a huge, dark spider sitting on his hand. “ _Shit!”_

Thomas jerks his hand hard. The spider goes flying through the room. His heart is pounding in his throat.  “Where did it go? Where did it go?”

“What?” Joan asks, faintly alarmed. “Where did what go?”

“You didn’t see it?” Thomas asks them, incredulous. “It was huge and on my hand and---eugh.” He shakes his hand out again, shivers running down his spine.

Joan glances around the room. “You mean like a fucking spider or some shit?”

Thomas nods, cradling the hand it had been on. It’s no secret just how much he hates spiders. He knows it isn’t even entirely rational, but something just really freaks him out about them. And it had been _big_. And _on him._ Thomas fights back another shudder.

“Did it bite you?” Joan asks.

“Did it _what_?” The question itself is enough to send a ripple of alarm through Thomas.

Joan shoots him a look that is something between sympathetic and slightly amused. They hold out their hand. “Here. Let me see.”

Hesitantly, Thomas lets Joan take his hand and glances around the room while they investigate. His brown eyes scan the dark wood floor, the shelves along the walls, even the cream walls themselves. There’s no sign of the arachnid, and if he’s being honest with himself, he isn’t sure if that makes him more anxious or relaxed. He feels Joan rub their thumb across the heel of his hand, then pull it closer to their face.

“What’s the verdict, doc?” Thomas jokes when Joan doesn’t say anything for a moment. He can’t quite manage to sound as lighthearted as he wants to.

Joan sucks in a breath through their teeth and releases Thomas’s hand. “It looks like you might’ve gotten bit, but it’s not anything dangerous as far as I can tell. Maybe wash it out or put ice on it or something just to be safe? We’ve got time to kill anyway.”

Thomas blows out a breath and stands. He cringes a little as he realizes he dumped the script unceremoniously onto the floor when he’d seen the spider on his hand. He gingerly hops over the loose pages. “I’ll fix that,” he promises before hurrying out of the room and down towards the bathroom.

…

Thomas looks down at his hand as he runs cold water over it. The bathroom of the office space is empty on a Saturday afternoon. The fluorescent lights above illuminate dark tile, and a light blue wall does little to absorb the terrible bathroom lighting. He glances around—noting the dark blue stalls and pristine white sink—as if it will somehow distract him from the thoughts growing louder in the back of his head.

“Thomas,” Logan says as he appears behind the internet personality, his voice dripping in annoyance and frustration. He smooths his striped tie against his black polo as Thomas meets his gaze through the mirror _._  “Will you _please_ explain to Virgil that the likelihood you are in any danger—immediate or otherwise—from a simple spider bite is miniscule at best?”

“Thomas,” Virgil quips as he appears beside Logan, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his hoodie, “will you please tell Logan that miniscule is not zero?” Thomas sighs and glances at the two’s reflection in the mirror.

Logan crosses his arms over his chest. “Virgil, I am quite aware that the quantity expressed by the term ‘miniscule’ is not equivalent to zero.” He waves a dismissive hand. “But worrying over such small odds—”

“I don’t know, kiddo,” Patton cuts in as he appears as well, his brow furrowed in concern as he briefly meets Thomas’s gaze through the reflection. The cat hoodie is tied around his shoulders. “Spiders kind of freak me out.”

“He _has_ called them ‘creepy crawly death dealers’,” Virgil adds, pointing a finger at the father figure. “And that was when they weren’t even real.”

“Have no fear, Padré,” Roman announces, appearing behind Thomas between Patton and Virgil. The red sash stretched across his white suit stands out sharply against he blue bathroom stalls. “If such a poisonous pest were to harm our host, I will die defending you all—”

“Die?!”

“Actually,” Logan says, adjusting the frame of his glasses, “the spider would not be poisonous. I believe you are looking for the term ‘venomous’, in this instance. Something is only poisonous if the consumption of it results in sickness or death, whereas--”

Thomas twists the faucet off and turns around to his bickering personality traits. “Guys,” he says. “Can we just, like, chill? For one second?”

Virgil bites at his thumbnail, his gaze zeroing in on Thomas’s hand. “Is it red? Does it look infected?”

Logan moves to stand beside Thomas as the host takes a closer look at the appendage. Thomas shrugs as Logan looks back up at Virgil. “There may be some slight reddening of the skin,” the Logical Side explains, “but that is normal in this case.”

“Are you sure?” Virgil asks, a slightly challenging edge to his voice.

“Of course he’s sure, Virge,” Patton offers softly. “Besides, we trust Joan, right? And Joan didn’t seem to think anything was wrong or dangerous. Just thought we should clean it to be safe.”

Virgil takes a breath and nods. “Okay. Sorry, I just…” he trails off with a sigh and shoves his hand back into his pocket. He curls in on himself a bit.

“It’s all good, Virge,” Thomas assures him. “You’re just trying to look out for me. And I hear ya. But I don’t think we have anything to worry about.” He gives his Anxious Side a small smile and sees the corner of Virgil’s mouth quirk briefly.

“Cool,” he says, but the way his shoulders relax betrays the relief he evidently feels. Thomas feels the lingering tension release in his own chest too.

As the aspects of his personality sink out, Thomas grabs a paper towel and dries his hand before hurrying back to the office. It’s just a small spider bite. He has nothing to worry about.

…

When Thomas wakes up the next morning, it’s to his cellphone ringing. He scrubs a hand across his eyes and picks it up, seeing Joan’s smiling face and name on the screen. He swipes to answer it, pressing it to his ear.

“Yeah?” he asks, his voice gruff from lingering sleepiness. “What’s up, Joan?”

_“I—Did you just wake up?”_

Thomas glances at the clock on his bedside dresser. He was supposed to be at the office fifteen minutes ago. He scrambles out of bed. “If I say yes, will you hate me?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Joan deadpans. Thomas huffs a faintly embarrassed laugh.

“I’ll be there asap,” he promises. He pulls the phone away from his hand and presses the red button on the screen to hang up. Except when he moves to pull his finger off the screen, it doesn’t move.

Thomas frowns, tugging harder to get his finger off the screen. He feels the joint stretch slightly, but the tip of his index finger stays stuck to the screen as if superglued on. When he tries to drop the hand holding the phone, it stays trapped to the device as well. Thomas feels his confusion only deepen. It’s not like the phone itself was sticky when he picked it up. So why the hell couldn’t he let go of it?

He tries wrenching both hands apart from the device at the same time. The feat, however, is to no avail; he feels a few of his knuckles pop and winces slightly. He takes a seat on the bed and looks closer at the device in his hands. It doesn’t appear to be covered in any residue. Neither do his hands.

_Weird…_

Thomas purses his lips, then wedges his feet up against his phone and tries to push it out of his hands.

It’s exactly the wrong thing to do, apparently. His phone stays glued to his hands and—much to his dismay—his feet. Thomas rolls back on his bed, his fingers and sock-clad feet stuck to his cell phone, causing him to be folded up in an awkward pretzel. Thomas stares at the white ceiling of his bedroom and sighs.

Maybe this is some weird fever dream. Something in the back of his mind reminds Thomas of the rumor that you can’t read while you’re dreaming, and he cranes his neck over to the shelf in his room. The fourth Harry Potter book sits on the corner and sure enough—even though he’s looking at it upside down—he can read the title easily enough.

Not a dream.

 _Huh_.

Thomas takes in a deep breath and releases it slowly. Maybe he’s just psyching himself out or something. All he really needs to do is not freak out and just let go. Right? What was that breathing exercise Virgil taught him? In for four, hold for seven, out for eight? Thomas closes his eyes and tries it.

A moment later, he hears a quiet _thump_ against the mattress and can flex his fingers. Thomas lets his legs fall over the edge of the bed and his arms flop to his sides and stares for a moment longer at the ceiling. If he’s being honest, he isn’t entirely convinced that what just happened was even real.

He blinks hard and shakes his head. He thinks about reaching for his phone again, maybe to text Joan or even send out a tweet, but he stops short. Maybe he’s being paranoid or stupid or superstitious but the suddenly the last thing he wants to do is touch his phone again. Thomas huffs a breath. He just needs to wake up more. A cold shower and he’d be good to go. _And he’d never mention whatever just happened to anyone ever._

Thomas rolls off the bed and stands, raking a hand through his hair. He wanders over to his closet, stepping carefully over discarded dirty clothes that litter his floor. He sighs as he looks at his options, all too aware that he is running _very late_ and yet somehow still unable to shake the uneasiness in his stomach from whatever it was that had just happened. He isn’t sure how to make sense of it other than to try to push it to the back of his mind.

Thomas shakes his head quickly and leans a hand against the wall as he attempts to focus on the clothes hanging in his closet. _Just pick an outfit, Thomas_ , he tells himself firmly. _You don’t have time for this._

He pinches the bridge of his nose and settles on a pair of jeans and one of the dark t-shirts on the hanger. He moves to pull his hand away from the wall to grab them, except… it’s stuck.

“What the…”

For all of Thomas’s efforts the past couple of minutes to push the alarm and confusion to the back of his mind regarding the instance with his phone, the panic slams back to the forefront. Thomas braces a foot against the wall and tries to wrench his hand free and then immediately feels like an idiot.

Because—and he feels like he really should have predicted this outcome of events—his foot sticks to the wall too.

Thomas grunts in effort, bracing the other foot against the wall up closer to his hand and _pulls_. He manages to wrench his hand free—the outer layer of paint rips off the wall where his hand had been and stays stuck to his fingertips and palm. He nearly loses his balance, his weight wobbling and his arms flailing in a frantic attempt to maintain his balance.

When he regains it, Thomas can feel his heart in his throat. He’s standing upright, on his feet. So why is he looking at his ceiling?

Because he’s _standing on the wall_. His feet are planted firmly against the beige wall, his body parallel to the floor, and Thomas suddenly feels faintly dizzy. He can feel himself swaying and blindly reaches his hands out to steady himself. He squeezes his eyes shut as his hands connect with something solid.

Maybe that whole thing about not being able to read while dreaming is a myth. This can’t _possibly_ be real. For some reason, the thought eases the surge of panic-induced bile raging in his stomach, and Thomas feels his feet pull off from the wall. But they don’t land on anything concrete. Thomas feels a sharp pull in his shoulders, his feet dangling in the air.

When he opens his eyes, he realizes that the thing his hands had connected with when he’d started to sway was, in fact, his _bedroom ceiling_. Thomas yelps, kicking his feet back towards the wall. He isn’t sure if he’s relieved when they stick again.

Thomas hears a familiar _whoosh_ and cranes his neck towards his bed, trying to not let dizziness over take him from seeing his bedroom _upside down_. Virgil is looking at up at him, his Anxious Side’s eyes wide and his hood pulled up over his sweep of bangs.

“Thomas,” he says, his voice loud and distorted. “We have a major problem.”

…


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2019 is off to a crazy hectic start. Sorry for the wait. Hopefully it was worth it! Special shout-out to my sister for helping me when I got extra stuck in this chapter. Edited by yours truly, so all mistakes are mine. I would absolutely love to know what you think!

Thomas’s chest feels tight and uncomfortable. He wonders somewhere in the back of his mind if passing out would mean falling to the floor or if he’d just wake up still stuck to the ceiling of his bedroom. Thomas attempts to pulls his hands off his ceiling—praying that his feet would still stick to the wall so that he wouldn’t fall face-first in the floor—but they don’t budge.

“Why can’t you let go, Thomas?” Virgil demands in that deep distorted voice, the words falling out of his mouth in a jumbled panic. “Just pull!”

“I’m _trying_ , Virgil,” Thomas snaps, an edge of panic in his own voice. “It’s not that easy!”

“What do you---” Virgil cuts himself off, pulling at the strings of his hoodie. He takes a breath. “Can someone else get in here, maybe?”

Thomas wasn’t sure who he was expecting to come to their aid, but it certainly wasn’t all three of them at once. Virgil’s hood is pulled so low over his face that his eyes aren’t visible, but the other Sides aren’t looking at him anyway. Roman’s jaw falls slack at the sight of their host clinging to the ceiling with his feet against the wall. Patton scratches the back of his head, his brows pulled together in confusion.

Logan’s eyes are wide. “Fascinating,” he says quietly, mostly to himself, but the room is dead silent except for the Logical Side’s voice. “Utterly fascinating.”

“This is probably just a dream. It’s not like it’s _real_ ,” Thomas insists, although now that he’s said it out loud, he can hear in his own voice how much he doesn’t believe it. He looks desperately at Roman across the room for confirmation.

Roman shoots Thomas an apologetic grimace. “Uh…” He rubs the back of his head awkwardly. “I’m afraid that while I may be the dreamer here, it’s more in a more… figurative, metaphorical sense.”

“Regardless,” Logan supplies, “a guaranteed way to wake up while asleep is through experiencing the sensation of falling.”

Thomas feels his stomach squirm at the same time Virgil makes a sound in the back of his throat. “Bad idea,” Virgil snaps, his voice still distorted.

“Yeah, I don’t really want to faceplant into the floor and break my neck.”

Logan glances at the floor below Thomas, then back up at the host. “Unlikely to occur from that distance. Besides, if we’re careful, you may even land perfectly fine on your feet. And on the off chance you are dreaming, you won’t _land_ at all. You will be awakened from your dream state.” He adjusts the knot of his tie. “While I must admit, Thomas, the likelihood that this is a dream seems predominantly rooted in wishful thinking rather than being substantiated in evidence, we might as well permanently remove that option from the list of reasonable explanations.”

 Thomas sighs and squeezes his eyes shut. He can feel the blood rushing to his head from looking upside down at his personality traits, and it isn’t helping the vertigo. “Okay,” he says. “Except that I don’t know how to let go.”

Patton hums thoughtfully. “Well, what worked for the phone?”

Thomas hesitates, glancing at Virgil as he answers. “I… tried that breathing thing you taught me, and the phone just kinda fell.” Virgil meets Thomas’s gaze, his eyebrows raising slightly in surprise. Wordlessly, Virgil nods a little, and Thomas sees him close his eyes and take in a deep, slow breath.

Thomas’s legs swing off the wall. The slight pain in his shoulders from the sudden weight pulling him towards the ground reminds him of the times he’d hang limply from monkey bars as a kid.

“All right, Thomas,” Virgil says in a quiet, measured voice. “I think I’m gonna need your help getting us the rest of the way. Breathe in for four seconds.”

Thomas closes his eyes and follows his Anxious Side’s instructions. Virgil walks him through the exercise even though Thomas remembers it well. It’s oddly reassuring to hear the manifestation of his own Anxiety try to help him calm down. Like they’re in it together. Thomas can’t help but feel like that odd feeling of being less alone—even though Virgil is just a part of him—is really what helps ease the pit in his stomach.

Thomas yelps when Virgil gets to count 7 of breathing out as his fingers abruptly detach from the ceiling and he falls hard on the floor of his bedroom. He lands on his feet, but his legs aren’t ready for the sudden weight and collapse beneath him.

“Thomas!” Virgil cries out.

“I’m okay,” he assures him quickly, really not wanting to risk getting either of them worked up again. The last thing Thomas wants right now is to be stuck to the floor and have to go through it all over again. “Just surprised me. I’m good.”

All the same, Thomas doesn’t try to stand up just yet. He sits on the floor near some dirty laundry that hadn’t quite made it to the laundry basket in his closet and takes a deep breath. His mind is still reeling. He blinks a couple of times.

“You Gucci, Thomas?” Roman asks.

Thomas swallows. “I… don’t know,” he says honestly. “I mean… what the hell was that?”

“Well, we have confirmed one thing that it is not,” Logan supplies. “You fell, and yet are still here in this situation. Therefore, this is not a dream. It’s a reality.”

Thomas can feel Patton’s worried gaze linger on him as he pushes himself to his feet. The father figure figment’s eyebrows pull together. “So what does that mean?” he asks.

“A reality means that the events are not occurring within an imagined construction of thought or fantasy, but rather—”

“No, I—sorry. I didn’t mean ‘what is reality’,” Patton interrupts hurriedly, holding out his hands. “I meant, what does that… _mean_? For Thomas and… for us?”

The silence that meets the end of Patton’s question hangs heavy in the air. Thomas’s gaze flickers up across from him and falls on Roman. The Prince’s eyes are wide, and he holds Thomas’s gaze for a moment before he looks around at the other three. He scoffs with a note of incredulity.

“I mean… isn’t it obvious?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Thomas is pretty sure he sees Logan bristle slightly.  “To what are you referring, Roman?”

Roman raises his eyebrows as if genuinely surprised at everyone’s blank look. He gestures towards Thomas. “Thomas has super powers.”

Logan opens his mouth, then closes it, his eyes narrowing first at Roman and then at Thomas with something akin to curiosity.

Virgil rolls his eyes, but Thomas doesn’t miss the way his shoulders shift uncomfortably underneath his oversized hoodie. “Super powers?” he says. “You can’t be serious. Logan already established that this is reality. We’re not living in some comic book.”

Roman holds an overdramatic hand to his chest. “I’ll have you know, that conclusion is _perfectly_ reasonable.”

“Explain,” Logan says, a finger on his mouth as if in deep thought. His eyes flicker briefly from Roman and back to Thomas. Thomas tries not to squirm under Logan’s steady, intense gaze. He feels like some sort of specimen under a microscope.

Roman gestures in a wide, sweeping arc towards Thomas. “It’s not as if _normal people_ can stick to walls. And wasn’t it just yesterday that he was bit by a spider? A plus B equals C and all that.”

Virgil is shaking his head before Roman has even finished speaking. “Logan, isn’t it you who always said that correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation?” His dark eyes flash a bit as he says it.

“Now, Virgil—” Patton tries, his voice placating, but Logan cuts him off.

“While that is true, Virgil,” he says slowly, “It was Sherlock Holmes himself who said ‘when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth’.”

“Ha!”

Logan continues, ignoring Roman’s shout of gloating victory. His gaze looks distant in thought. “Therefore, while it’s highly unlikely that Thomas gained any kind of superhuman capability from a simple spider bite, it cannot be entirely rejected as a possibility. The facts as they stand are that Thomas is not currently dreaming and he has exhibited capabilities that are beyond normal human ability. So far, that only includes sticking to phones, walls, and ceilings.”

Thomas stares at Logan. “Is the logical part of my brain actually saying that the idea that I might have _super powers_ isn’t completely impossible?”

Logan flashes him a dry, unamused look. “Yes. This is already a highly improbable circumstance. The explanations in relation to it are likely to be equally improbable. Therefore, since I can’t definitively prove that super powers do not exist, I can’t fully rule it out as a possibility.”

“I…” Thomas starts to say, but trails off. He rakes a hand back through his hair and blows out a breath. He squeezes his eyes shut against his reeling thoughts. He has super powers? Does that make him like some kind of super _hero_? Is he supposed to crawl on walls and ceilings and drop down and somehow rescue people from…what? Some unidentified danger?

Thomas looks to his left towards Patton. His Moral Side is looking worriedly at him, his brows pulled together in thought. “Patton?” he asks, his voice sounding smaller than he expected it to, even to his own ears. “You doing okay with all of this?”

Patton sighs, averting his gaze with a small shrug. “Honestly, kiddo? I’m… not sure.” He glances up, then across the room towards Virgil. “Maybe we all just need a minute to process this.”

Thomas rubs the pads of his fingers over his eyes and shakes his head. “I…” he says. He knows that Patton may have a point, but it all feels like too much too fast. He suddenly wants everything to just _stop_ for a minute, but it won’t and he knows it. “I don’t have time for this right now. Joan is waiting on me for filming.”

He snatches the pair of jeans and dark t-shirt he’d chosen from his closet and changes quickly.

“Thomas,” Patton says as Thomas tugs the shirt over his head with perhaps a bit more force than was really necessary, “Are you sure we shouldn’t… stay home for the day until we figure out what’s going on? We could tell Joan you… caught a bug?”

“Is now really the time for puns, Patton?” Logan asks dryly.

“I don’t know,” Thomas replies as he brushes past Virgil and snatches the phone off his bed. “Right now, I just want to focus on the things that I _do_ know. So I’m gonna go film the rest of this Cartoon Therapy episode, and when I get back I’ll… we’ll figure it out.”

Even Logan looks a bit concerned as Thomas sits on the bed and jams his feet into the closest pair of sneakers he can find. “I’m not sure that is wise, Thomas.”

Thomas doesn’t reply as he pushes through the door and closes it behind him with an echoing bang.

…

“Sorry I’m late,” Thomas says as he rushes into the familiar office space half an hour later.

Joan already has the lighting fixtures and camera set up in front of the couch. Thomas drops his bag in the corner and shoves the bangs falling into his eyes back into his hair. He tries to flash Joan an apologetic smile, but from the way their brows furrow in concern, Thomas has the feeling it probably looked more like a grimace.

“It’s okay, dude,” Joan says. “You all right?”

“Yeah,” Thomas says, hoping he sounds more confident than he feels. For a brief moment, he thinks about telling them. But he wouldn’t even really know what to _say_ , and he has a feeling that it wouldn’t exactly help Joan’s evident concern if he told them he’d somehow found his way stuck to the ceiling of his bedroom and that he now thinks he maybe has super powers. “Just… a weird morning,” he says instead.

He can feel their lingering gaze on him as he turns to grab his laptop out of his bag. “Wanna talk about it?” they ask.

“Not really,” Thomas replies honestly. “I think I should probably just focus on filming.” He sits in the chair across the brown couch and opens his computer, pulling up the needed software and studiously ignoring Joan’s eyes.

“Okay,” Joan says after a moment. Thomas feels his shoulders relax a bit. “I was thinking we’d finish up filming Elliot’s scenes nad get what we’re missing of Picani’s. We got the last of Corbin and Sloane yesterday, so we should be good on that. And Valerie is doing her filming tomorrow.”

As Joan walks through the schedule, Thomas feels himself nodding along and doing his best to not let his thoughts drift. The normalcy of it all—the familiarity of the office, the routine of filming, hearing Joan lay out a concrete plan for the next couple of days—helps quell the jitteriness he’d felt the entire drive over. He can focus on the things he knows. The things that are familiar to him. And as he does so, he feels like it’s a little easier to breathe.

“So what do you want to tackle first? Since it’s just us to film today, we can kinda do whatever,” Joan says.

Thomas shrugs. “I think Picani is gonna take longer, so maybe we should start with that.”

Joan nods their agreement, and Thomas grabs Picani’s costume and changes quickly in the bathroom before hurrying back. He adjusts the pastel green tie as he takes his seat in the office chair. Joan has the camera set up and Thomas glances into the viewfinder and adjusts his hair slightly as they grab the laptop and pull it up into their lap.

“You ready?” Joan asks.

Thomas gives them a smile, and it feels a little more natural this time. “Yeah.”

Joan tugs the beanie down a little as it starts to slide back on their head, typing a few thing on the laptop before nodding. “Cool. We’re picking up in the scene with Elliot, right?”

Thomas agrees, grabbing the notebook off the shelf behind him. Joan, carefully balancing the laptop on their legs, grabs the script off the floor. Thomas takes a steadying breath. “Elliot has the first line, right?”

Joan nods, flipping a few pages before they find it. They cast a quick glance up at Thomas to double check that he’s ready before reading the line. “’Wait, there are two Danny’s?’”

“’Well’,” Thomas says in that thick Midwestern accent, “One is Dani with an ‘i’ and the other is Danny with a ‘y’, but we’ll just call ‘Dani with an i’ Danielle for clarity’s sake.’”

“’Okay…That’s not confusing at all…’” Joan reads with that familiar sarcasm from Elliot.

“Bear with me, Elliot,” Thomas says, holding his hands out. “Now, Danielle was created by Vlad because Danny wouldn’t disown his parents and become his son instead. In the eyes of Vlad, Danielle was just a poor imitation of what he really wanted.”

Joan pauses before they read the next line. “How did she react?” their voice is quiet, subdued. Thomas feels the corner of his mouth quirk in sympathy that is somehow a blend of acting and his own actual reaction.

“She didn’t let it stop her from being who she was,” Thomas replies gently as Picani. “When Danielle found out, she helped bring Vlad’s plan to a stop and then committed herself to doing as much good in the world as she could.” Thomas pauses, knowing they’d want to cut in with Elliot’s reaction briefly. “Just because Vlad created her to be one thing didn’t mean she couldn’t define who she was for herself.”

“I…” Joan falters on the line. “Cool? Nope. Fuck. Hold on.” They laugh as they look down at the script. “I forgot the line.”

Thomas laughs, the serious ambience of the moment breaking. This is what he remembers and what feels safe: making things he loves with his friends. Being creative, having fun with them, and laughing their way through the mistakes during filming. It’s a comforting routine.

“Wait, okay,” Joan says. “I got it. Turn Serious Picani back on, Thomas.”

Thomas laughs again. “Is this where I say ‘Going Serious’? Instead of ‘Going Ghost’?” He crinkles his nose after he says it. “Doesn’t really have the same ring.”

Joan shakes their head, smiling. “You could do something like the Box Ghost.”

 “I am Picani! Beware!” Thomas laughs again. “Pretty sure therapists shouldn’t be yelling at their clients to ‘beware’.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” There’s still a twinkle of amusement in Joan’s eyes.

Thomas shakes his hands out and takes a deep breath in an effort to get back into character. “Okay, okay. What’s the line?”

Joan glances down at the script. “I just don’t really know where to start.”

“That’s okay,” Thomas says encouragingly. “Figuring out who we are independent of who other people think we _should_ be is no easy task. Danny struggles with this too. Stuck between half-ghost and half-human, Danny always feels caught between worlds. And he finds it hard to be himself when neither side wants to fully accept him.”

“Well that sounds familiar,” Joan says dryly.

Thomas gives a sympathetic smile. “But the important thing, Elliot, is that both Danny and Danielle learn to accept who they are, complications and all, and they do what they can to help others.”

There’s a quiet, weighted moment after Thomas has finished speaking. The words echo in his head for a moment. _Accept who they are, complications and all, and they do what they can to help others_. The events of the morning flicker back through Thomas’s mind briefly. The two blend together in a combination that swirls uncomfortably in his stomach.

Joan cracks a small smile. “I feel good about those takes,” they say, pulling Thomas out of his thoughts. “What about you?”

“Yeah,” Thomas agrees, shaking his head quickly in an attempt to clear it. “Yeah, I feel good about it. I, uh, I think I’m gonna grab some water real quick.” He stands up suddenly, the chair pushing back into the bookcase behind him in the process.

Everything seems to slow down around him.

A voice in his head that sounds an awful lot like Virgil yells **_Thomas, behind you!_** He ducks out of the way instinctively as the bookcase wobbles.

Joan shouts his name as it starts to fall forward. _If it falls, it’ll hit Joan_.

He reacts on instinct. His hand darts out, catching the corner of the heavy bookcase as it pitches forward.

Joan has their arms thrown up to protect themself from the falling shelves. Books, stuffed animals, and other knick-knacks fall to the floor and Thomas uses his one arm to pull the bookcase back to the wall.

“You okay?” Thomas asks, looking to Joan with worry and adrenaline.

It’s not until he sees Joan’s wide, surprised eyes as they lower their arms that Thomas realizes what just happened.

He shouldn’t have been able to stop a bookcase full of things from falling on Joan with just one hand.

And he definitely shouldn’t have been able to pull it back with just one arm. Not one that had taken both Thomas and Joan to move into the office space to begin with.

Thomas thinks he can actually feel the color drain from his face. Joan is staring at him.

“I, um, y-yeah,” Joan stammers out. “Yeah, I’m fine.” They open their mouth, their brows pulled together and head cocked as if they’re about to ask a question. They close their mouth a second later.

“Good,” Thomas says tightly. “That’s good.” The bookcase hadn’t even felt like it weighed anything at all.

Joan nods slowly, uncertainty and doubt simmering in their dark eyes. “Did… did you just… I mean, have you been working out or something?”

“What?” Thomas asks absently. The question breaks through his racing thoughts in the next moment. “Oh. Yeah.” He knows he doesn’t sound convincing and it’s all he can do to avoid cringing.

The tie around his neck suddenly feels too tight. Thomas tugs slightly on the knot, unable to help the way his hands shake slightly. He doesn’t know if it’s the lingering adrenaline from the bookcase almost falling on him and Joan or if it’s something else.

“Are _you_ okay, Thomas?” Joan asks. Their voice sounds far away.

Thomas swallows. His chest feels tight, and it sounds like more than one voice in his head is telling him to get out of there. Joan’s intelligent, careful gaze certainly isn’t helping. “I just… need some air, I think,” Thomas replies. He’s half-way out the door before the words are out of his mouth.

“Do you—”

“I’m fine,” he insists. He doesn’t meet Joan’s eyes. “I’ll be fine. I just need to stretch my legs.”

He’s out the door before Joan can say another word.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn’t expect this chapter to go the way it did. It became one of those “characters sometimes have minds of their own and I get taken for a joyride as a writer” kind of chapters. Thank you so much to creativenostalgiastuff on Tumblr. for looking this chapter over for me since I was extra doubtful about it. Oof. Change of pace in this chapter. I hope you like it!

Thomas paces in front of the office building. It’s mostly overcast, the sky a flat gray color that promises rain. The office was tucked away in a more run-down section of Gainesville, which certainly helped with the affordability of the location. The wind is picking up a little and Thomas tugs the hood of his gray sweatshirt up over his head against the chilly breeze. In the back of his mind, he’s grateful he had enough sense to grab it and a scarf from the hook in the hallway on his way out of the building. 

He breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth. He looks out at the parking lot, wondering briefly if maybe he could just go home. Tell Joan he wasn’t feeling well. Then again, Thomas can’t be sure they’d even believe him. Especially after he just effortlessly stopped a bookcase from falling on them with one arm. He should have listened to Patton and Logan and stayed home today.

Thomas groans under his breath and rakes a hand through his bangs to push them out of his eyes again. He stops pacing and leans back against the brick wall. Just a few minutes out here to get his heart to slow back down to a normal pace and then he’d go back inside and pretend like everything was fine. He’d at least get through filming today.

Thomas watches absently as a dark green van pulls into the mostly-empty parking lot. There’s another cold gust of air and Thomas tugs his scarf up over his nose to brace against it. The van pulls into a spot several yards away, and Thomas sees a young woman climb out of the driver’s seat. 

She looks like she’s maybe only a handful of years older than Thomas, a frazzled ponytail swishing behind her as she opens one of the passenger doors. She fusses with something in the backseat that Thomas can’t see until she emerges with a toddler—big glasses and a flop of blonde hair—propped on her hip. He seems to be babbling about something to the woman, clutching onto her shirt. She says something in reply to him, then adjusts his glasses and kisses the top of his head before setting him down on the pavement. The little boy is looking up at her and grabs her hand, his babbling continuing.

Thomas smiles faintly at the sweet display. He fishes his phone out of his pocket, wanting to give the family some privacy instead of staring at them. He scrolls through Twitter for a moment, smiling as he notices a fan’s artwork of Patton making pancakes. Thomas retweets it, adding a comment of “omg I love this so much! Thank you!”. 

“Hey, what are you doing here? What are--no!” 

The shout from across the parking lot grabs his attention immediately. Thomas looks up and shoves his phone into his pocket. A car that Thomas hadn’t noticed pull up has parked itself beside the green van. But more concerning than that are the two large men, one of whom has the little boy’s arm in a tight grip. The other steps in front of the woman as she lunges to grab the boy.

Thomas is halfway across the parking lot before he’s even fully processed what is happening.

“You can’t take him!” The woman begs. The little boy starts screaming and thrashing, but his strength is no match for man holding onto him. The woman shoves against the man in front of her with all her strength, but he only stumbles back a step or two before he roughly shoves her into her car. 

Thomas is sprinting. “Hey!” he shouts, trying to get their attention.

“You’re  _ hurting _ me!” the boy’s voice is panicked.  

“Hey!” Thomas yells again. This time they seem to hear him, as both men’s heads swivel up and focus on him. “Let them go!”

Both men spring into action, one of them lunging to intercept Thomas as he sprints up and the other—the one holding the boy’s arm—dragging the screaming child towards the car.  **Duck!** Something yells in his mind and Thomas drops on instinct, feeling a fist fly over his head as he does so. 

He can feel his heart pounding in his chest now for an entirely different reason. He tries to kick out blindly against the man directly in front of him, taking up his field of vision. The boy’s screaming sounds distant now to Thomas, but he can also hear the woman shouting something too. At him? At the boy? At these two men? Thomas doesn’t know.

Thomas feels a foot connect hard in his stomach and coughs, gritting his teeth. “He’s just a kid—” Thomas tries to implore, but cuts himself off as he narrowly dodges something flying towards his jaw. 

He blows out a hard breath. He blinks quickly, his senses flooding with a suddenly alarming clarity. The woman is trying to beat the man dragging the boy away, the boy still thrashing to get his arm free. It’s all Thomas has time to process before the first man growls in the back of his throat and charges Thomas. 

He’s moving… slower than Thomas would have expected. He dives out of the way, kicking a leg out to trip him as the man stumbles past him. He trips face first into the pavement. Thomas doesn’t wait to see if he gets up. He can still hear the yelling distantly through the blood rushing in his ears.

Thomas watches the man a few yards away deliver a sharp elbow to the woman’s face. Thomas rushes up behind her, catching her from behind as she stumbles back. Thomas gently nudges her forward to help her regain her balance. 

“You okay?” he asks, panting. 

The woman is holding her nose, blood seeping through her fingers. She turns angry, desperate green eyes onto Thomas and shakes her head. “He’s taking my baby! I think he’s taking him to John and--” she pales even further. 

“John?” Thomas asks, confused. The woman’s explanation is cut off by the slamming of a car door. Thomas looks over in time to see the boy clamoring over to the window, slamming his small fists against it as he screams his head off. He looks scared. He’s screaming for his mom. 

Thomas reacts.

He reaches the car at the same time the man dives into the driver’s seat and slams it into drive. Tires scream against the pavement, the smell of burnt rubber stings Thomas’s nostrils. He lunges for the rear passenger side door handle just as the car peels forward. But his hand makes contact. And it’s all Thomas really needs.

He yelps as his hand sticks to the car door and he gets pulled along towards the parking lot exit, his feet sliding and scraping against the pavement. Thomas grits his teeth and does his best to kick himself up onto the car. He manages to get one foot up on the trunk of the car, and with another try, he gets the other leg up too. 

He releases a fast breath. He glances down long enough to see the road burn had scraped a hold down the side of his jeans he’d been wearing, but he doesn’t feel any pain from it. He has bigger things to worry about right now anyway.

Thomas has one hand still on the back door of the sedan, kneeling on the trunk of the car. The little boy in the back seat is turned around and stares at him through the rear windshield with wide, awed eyes. Thomas tries to flash him a quick reassuring smile before he realizes that his scarf is still covering half of his face. 

The wind as the car speeds out of the parking lot whips at the strands of Thomas’s hair peeking out from under the gray hoodie. Thomas pulls his hand off the door, a flash of gratefulness flooding him when he’s able to do so instead of staying stuck. He stays low to the car as he shifts to steady his balance on the trunk, leaned up against the rear windshield. 

Thomas locks eyes with the driver through the rearview mirror seconds before the car swerves, fishtailing out of the parking lot. Thomas feels the shift and braces against it. His feet on the car and his hands against the back windshield keeps him from sliding off the car. 

Thomas sees the flash of surprise quickly overcome by frustration as the driver accelerates down the road away from the building. Thomas’s eyes start to water against the sting of the wind. He blinks to clear them. 

The boy is still staring at him. His screaming has stopped.  _ Get him out, get him out, get him out _ . It’s the only thing Thomas can think about right now. If he could get him out while the driver is occupied, even better. 

Thomas locks gazes with the young boy, then looks pointedly towards the door on the left. The boy frowns in confusion for a second, following Thomas’s gaze, before his eyes widen in understanding. He nods quickly, scrambling over to the door. 

Thomas’s heart is in his throat, choking his air a bit. He stays low to the car and shifts over slightly. The car swerves dangerously again but Thomas stays latched onto it. He sees the driver slam an angry hand against the wheel. 

He gets a hand free at the same time he sees the boy pull the lock on the door Thomas had pointed him to. The driver shouts something Thomas can’t make out. The boy kicks the door open and scrambles out.

Thomas lunges to catch him as he tumbles out the door, his knees sticking to the car as he throws himself over to catch the kid. He wraps his free arm around the boy’s midsection, barely managing to keep him from faceplanting into the pavement whizzing underneath them. 

“I got ya,” Thomas grunts. He feels the car lurch as the driver slams on the breaks. Tires scream against the pavement again. Thomas hoists the kid up—he really weighs almost nothing—and presses low to the car as the young boy scrambles to climb into his back. “Don’t let go!” Thomas urges him.

“Okay!” the boy yells in his ear. Thomas coughs slightly as the boy’s grip around his neck tightens. 

_ God, please don’t stick _ , Thomas thinks as the car surges to a stop in the middle of the road. He pushes up and jumps off the car. The brief moment of sheer relief that floods him when Thomas doesn’t stick to the vehicle is short lived as he trips when his feet hit the pavement. The boy on his back is surprisingly light to Thomas, but it’s still enough weight to throw off his balance a bit. 

Thomas hears the sound of the car door opening and he swivels to face the car as the driver climbs out. Thomas holds out an arm as he hears the boy gasp, tighten his grip, and press his face into Thomas’s neck. 

“Whoa,” Thomas says to the driver, facing him to place himself between the driver and the little boy. Thomas starts backing up out of the main road towards the sidewalk. “He’s just a kid, man.” He risks a brief moment to glance around. The road is a two lane main street, with local shops and businesses lining both sides. Cars from both directions have come to a full stop. Patrons and shop owners have started to file out onto the sidewalks, staring at the altercation. 

_ Shit _ , Thomas thinks, and he tugs the scarf a little further up his face. Several people have started—or were already—filming and taking pictures with their phone. In some ways, Thomas knows it’s a good thing. Because the driver has noticed too, and he hasn’t moved any closer to them. 

The driver seems to follow Thomas’s gaze around to the increasingly thickening crowd around them and pales. He shoots a sharp glare at Thomas. Thomas instinctively wraps an arm back around towards the kid to protect him before the man ducks back into the driver’s seat. He tears down the road. 

Thomas watches the car for a moment as it races around a right turn and disappears. He can hear people murmuring, and he hopes that at least one of them caught the license plate. He had forgotten to check. 

“Is he gone?” the boy asks in a small voice, pulling Thomas out of his thoughts. Thomas drops a little so the boy’s sneakers are firmly on the ground before he gently pries his small hands off from around his neck. 

Thomas turns to him and gives him a small smile—seconds before he remembers half of his face is still hidden from the scarf. “Yeah,” Thomas tells him. “He’s gone. You okay?”

The boy nods, but Thomas can see him rubbing his arm—the same one that had been grabbed in the parking lot—and bruises already peeking out from under the sleeve of his green Ninja Turtles shirt. Thomas’s stomach rolls a little, but he tries to distract the boy from it. 

“What’s your name?”

“It’s, um.” The boy rubs at his eyes under his glasses, knocking them slightly askew on his nose. “Um. Mommy calls me Mikey because. Um.” He looks down at his shirt and points to the turtle with the orange eye mask.

Thomas smiles again. “Is Michaelangelo your favorite?”

The boy’s eyes light up a little—Thomas can still see tears in the corner of them—behind his glasses. “Yeah! He’s the best.” He peers a little closer at Thomas. “Do you have a favorite Ninja Turtle?” He glances at Thomas’s sweatshirt before he can answer and tilts his head a little. “Oh. You have a spider on your shirt. Do you like spiders more than turtles?”

Taken aback, Thomas glances down. Sure enough, there’s a small white spider on the left side of his hoodie. It was part of the branding.  _ Ironic choice of sweatshirt today, Thomas _ , he thinks wryly to himself.

He’s about to answer when a flash of camera light makes him suddenly very aware that there is still a crowd surrounding them, pressing increasingly closer. 

“What’s going on here?” says a booming voice. Thomas’s head jolts up and he sees a police officer breaking through the crowd with the woman from the parking lot. 

For a reason he can’t entirely place, Thomas is suddenly overcome with the understanding that he has to get away, and he has to get away now. He knows he should maybe stay and answer questions—Thomas didn’t do anything wrong, and he’d do it all again if given the chance—but he’s suddenly extremely aware that they will ask questions he can’t answer. 

_ I’m sorry, you just… stuck to the car? _ Thomas can’t explain it to them. And he really doesn’t want the public attention as some sort of freak of nature. 

Questions that might be dangerous to him, depending on how they react. After all, dozens of people saw him riding on the back of the car and catch a kid as he fell out the door of a moving vehicle. 

“Mom!” the boy shouts when he sees the woman, and he breaks from Thomas and barrels towards her. She’s sobbing as she kneels down on the ground and grabs Mikey in her arms, pressing kisses to his head and checking him over. 

The police officer stops to watch them, and Thomas uses the distraction to duck back into the alley a few feet to the left. 

He starts running. 

…

Hot water rains down against his back as Thomas stands in the shower a few hours later.

He hears his phone buzz on the counter, and he knows it’s probably another text from Joan. Thomas had made his way back to the parking lot, jumped in his car, and drove home. He’d barely remembered to send a text to Joan with a quick,  _ Hey I got really sick all of a sudden and didn’t want to get you sick so I went home. Super sorry. :(  _ before he’d started the car. Maybe would Joan would buy it or maybe they wouldn’t. Thomas feels like he’s running on autopilot. The events of the last fifteen minutes flashed behind his eyes the entire drive home.

Joan had told him not to worry about it, texting him that they’d drop by later to check in and they’d take care of filming what they could.  _ I’ll get Camden to come help. Just focus on getting better, dude.  _ Thomas couldn’t explain why that made his stomach twist. 

The steam and heat from the shower is a welcomed reprieve from the biting cold that had seeped into his muscles after the whole incident with the car. Thomas doesn’t know how long he’d been standing under the hot spray but it was also helping with the tightness between his shoulder-blades. He didn’t want to get out. These three walls and curtain made a comfortable safe haven from everything Thomas knew he’d have to confront and deal with and he didn’t feel ready. He didn’t feel ready for any of it.

He’d never liked change.  _ Nobody does _ , he reminds himself. But he’d even made a YouTube video about how he hated change, and how it hard it could be for him. And Logan had told him once,  _ there’s change you can control, and change you cannot control _ . And the whole point of the video had been about taking advantage of the change you can control to make the change you cannot control more bearable.

Thomas sighs and shuts off the water. He’d tried that today. He’d tried being normal despite the weird change his body seemed to be going through and it ended up with Thomas intervening on an attempted kidnapping and then running from the police so he wouldn’t have to answer questions. 

What was he supposed to do when “normal” may not be an option anymore? When it feels like everything— _ everything— _ is going to be changing whether he wants it to or not?

Thomas grabs the folded towel off the counter and dries off, rubbing it through his hair after he pulls on pajamas. It’s late afternoon, but Thomas doesn’t plan to be going anywhere else today. 

He flips on the television for background noise as he pads over to the kitchen to preheat the oven. He’d forgotten that the last thing he’d been watching was the news yesterday, and Thomas nearly drops his box of frozen mozzarella sticks  when he sees Mikey’s face on the screen. The headline blow reads LOCAL STRANGER SAVES BOY FROM KIDNAPPING OVER CUSTODY BATTLE.

Thomas freezes as the familiar little blonde-haired boy is speaking into the news anchor’s microphone. “—an’-and he caught me and pulled me up and then he jumped off and didn’t let the bad guy get me. And then he asked me about my name and we talked about Ninja Turtles.”

Despite himself, Thomas smiles a little. The news anchor laughs lightly as the camera zooms out to show both her and Mikey. “Do you have a message for this mystery stranger?”

Mikey seems to think about it for a moment, then grabs the microphone from the news anchor and holds it in both of his hands. “Thanks for saving me, Mr. Spider-Man.”

Thomas can’t help the surprised laugh that bubbles up his chest.  _ Spider-Man _ ? Thomas wonders at the same time he hears the news anchor, her voice barely picked up from the mic that the boy is holding, asks the same question. 

Mikey nods. “I call him that because he didn’t tell me his name but he was wearing a spider and I think he likes spiders more than Ninja Turtles but that’s okay because he saved me.”

Thomas feels his chest squeeze with an unexpected affection even as his vision blurs in the corners a little. Thomas wipes at his eyes, surprised a little at the surge of emotion that expands in his chest. 

“Well,” the news anchor says with a smile as she takes the mic back, “You heard it here first. Local “Spider-Man” is at least one kid’s hero tonight. Back to you, Bill.”

Mikey’s words echo in Thomas’s mind as the news switches to talking about the weather.  _ He saved me. _

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi hello it’s been too long. But the Big Deal Real Life Time Sucking Thing has been turned in and hopefully I will have some more free time on my hands. ^u^ This chapter had some surprises for me as a writer, so I hope you find it enjoyable! Edited by yours truly, so all mistakes are mine.

Later that night, Thomas lays on his bed in the dark and stares up at the flat ceiling of his bedroom. Dodie’s newest EP floats through the air softly—he’d turned it on with the perhaps hypocritical hope that listening to his friend’s music would help him feel better about avoiding, well… his friends.

Once the news started showing stills of him in his scarf and sweatshirt—most of them mercifully blurry—with the anchors musing about who the stranger may be, Thomas had switched off the TV. He really wished they’d focus more on the kid, or even the guys that tried to take him. Anything but their apparent crusade to identify “Spider-Man”.

Turning off the TV, unfortunately, did very little to assuage the churning in his stomach. The events of the day flashed through his mind in broken fragments. The woman crying out for her kid, the wide and fearful eyes magnified by the glasses on the kid’s nose looking at him through the rear windshield, the snarl of contempt from the driver of the vehicle…

Thomas sighs and scrubs a hand across his eyes. The alarm clock on the nightstand politely informs him that it’s nearly 2 in the morning. He wonders bitterly if there is anything more frustrating than being utterly exhausted and still unable to sleep. His body feels like lead but his mind is still running through the events of the day like a highlight reel.

“This isn’t working,” he mutters aloud to himself. He takes a breath as if it will ease the churning in his stomach. Closing his eyes, he reaches through his mind with the probing thought.

_Virge?_

A sigh that isn’t exactly Thomas’s own echoes in his head. _Yeah, Thomas_ , comes Virgil’s voice, sounding unsurprised. _One sec._

The host opens his eyes again and blinks at the ceiling that he’d been stuck to just earlier this morning. Was that really just this morning? It felt like a lifetime ago. Dodie’s “Monster” gives way to “Arms Unfolding” but it’s little comfort alone in the dark. A moment later, Thomas hears the familiar _whoosh_ and glances over to see Virgil standing beside his bed. His hood is pulled up over his purple hair and his hands are shoved deep into the pockets of his patched hoodie.

It’s hard to see his eyes in the dark under the hood and shaggy bangs, but from the slight duck to his head, Thomas knows he’s avoiding his gaze.

The internet personality sits up and rakes his fingers through his hair. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“I’m getting the feeling that you need to talk.”

Virgil lifts a noncommittal shoulder. “Logan already tried.” He nudges sock-clad feet against the Virgil 2.0 sweatshirt in a heap on the floor. Tension is etched carefully into every crevice of Virgil; evident, even in the dark.

Thomas looks at him patiently, shifting over slightly to make room. “Today was a lot.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Virgil snaps. His gaze flickers up to the vacated space on the bed. He sits gingerly on the very edge of it, as if he’s ready to bolt at a moment’s notice.

“So talk to me.”

Another long pause. It’s filled only with the soft, melodic sound of Dodie’s voice and the background whir of the apartment’s AC unit. The glow of the alarm clock’s red numbers does little in the way of light, and the darkness of the room so late at night seems to only amplify the silence between them. It stretches. For a moment, Thomas thinks Virgil isn’t going to say anything.

Then: “We could have actually, really died today.” Virgil’s words ring crystal clear and heavy in the dark. With it comes a tightening in Thomas’s chest. Virgil continues, the double vocalization leaking into his words. Amplifying them. “And don’t come at me with that ‘cognitive distortions’ crap. Not this time, Thomas. You _know I’m right_.”

Thomas can feel his heartbeat picking up in his chest and he takes in a deep breath through his nose. He holds it for a second, then releases it slowly through his mouth. He sees Virgil close his eyes as Thomas does it again. Virgil nods a silent thanks.

“But we didn’t,” Thomas replies softly as he feels the wave of panic brought on by that initial realization abates a little.

Virgil scoffs. “That’s kind of beside the point. We were in way over our heads.”

“But it turned out okay in the end.”

“Because we got lucky!” Virgil meets Thomas’s gaze for the first time tonight, his dark eyes cutting sharply through the space between them. “In fact, we got lucky a lot today. Lucky that we stuck to the car. Lucky that we caught the kid when he was about to faceplant into pavement going 45 miles per hour. Lucky that we got off the car when we needed to, that the driver didn’t have a gun or something, that nobody got a decent picture of you. The list goes on!”

Thomas is quiet for a moment, looking at Virgil carefully. At the tight clench to his jaw, the harsh glower from under his bangs, the aggression sketched into the edge of his stare. Thomas softens a little. “You’re right,” he says, and Virgil blinks at him, disarmed at the agreement. “We dove headfirst into a fight that wasn’t really ours in the first place.”

Virgil nods slowly. “Yeah…”

“So…Why?” Thomas tilts his head curiously as he asks.

Virgil arches an eyebrow at him. “What do you mean?”

The host sits up a little more, speaking as his thoughts come to him in a slow progression of understanding. “I mean… you’re my fight or flight, right? You said so yourself.”

Virgil rubs the back of his neck and averts his gaze again, favoring instead to focus on a picture of some of Thomas’s friends he’d had framed on his nightstand. “Right. I… I guess.”

Thomas is watching him closely as the thoughts begin to click into place. “If the fight wasn’t ours in the first place, if we were in way over our head, if the odds were most likely against us… why did you choose fight, Virgil?”

Virgil looks startled for a moment. “I…” the thought is left unfinished.

He huffs a breath and shoves a hand back through his hair. It knocks the hood off his head. Virgil doesn’t seem to notice or has decided he doesn’t care. Thomas doesn’t press him any further. Even in the dark, he can see the flicker of his eyes as he thinks back to that split-second decision.

“Because they were in danger,” Virgil says quietly. Simply. His eyes are abruptly wide. Afraid. “I didn’t _think_. They were danger, and I just… threw us headfirst into a fight we could have lost.” Thomas feels his chest seize suddenly, alarm surging up his throat as Virgil’s voice takes on a sudden and intense distortion. “ ** _You must hate me.”_**

“Whoa, whoa. No.” His breathing is getting faster. Thomas’s hands fist around the blanket across his lap as if it will ground him. “Virgil, you gotta—” His throat closes up with panic.

“ **I know! I know. I’m sorry, I—in for four seconds, Thomas**.”

Thomas screws his eyes shut and focuses on his breathing. In through the nose for four seconds, hold for seven seconds, out through the mouth for eight. Repeat. Repeat again. Repeat a fourth time. He can hear Virgil breathing slowly with him.

“I don’t hate you,” Thomas says after a few minutes, when he’s felt his heart slowing back down and his throat doesn’t feel as tight. “I’m… actually really proud of you.”

Virgil’s eyes flit back up to Thomas’s. “Yeah?” The distortion is gone, but Virgil sounds smaller somehow.

Thomas smiles faintly. “Yeah. I mean… us running towards danger to help someone else instead of away from it? I’ve always wanted to think that I’d be that kind of person.” He nudges Virgil’s shoulder with his foot. “Now I know I am.”

The corner of Virgil’s mouth quirks for the briefest moment, then it disappears. He looks away. “I’m supposed to protect you, Thomas,” he says. “Running you straight into a fight isn’t exactly keeping you from harm. It’s pretty much exactly the opposite of that.”

“I don’t know about that,” Thomas says gently, thinking back through moments of the fight in the parking lot. His muscles ache slightly from the memory, but something more important sticks out. “I seem to remember a voice sounding an awful lot like yours telling me to duck before I would’ve taken a fist to the face.”

Virgil snorts. “Yeah.” He rubs the back of his neck and glances at Thomas. He makes a face. “Honestly that was a little weird, right?”

“Weird?”

“Yeah. I mean… I don’t even know what made me yell that at you. I just had this sudden, intense feeling that you needed to duck. I didn’t know why.” He shakes his head and shrugs. “It was weird. But I’m kinda glad for it. A bloody nose isn’t exactly a becoming look on you.”

“Huh.” Thomas turns Virgil’s words over in his head for a moment. “Do you think it’s related to all the other, um… weird stuff?”

Virgil looks at him. “I don’t know. It might be?” He sighs. “Though ‘all the other weird stuff’ also hasn’t been helping with the whole…” He waves a hand vaguely.

Thomas huffs a suddenly exhausted laugh, not needing any further explanation from his Anxious Side. “Yeah,” he agrees. “I get what you mean. We don’t know what’s happened to me, or… even what I’m able to do. And that’s…”

“Unsettling,” Virgil finishes for him. Thomas nods.

Distantly, the internet personality hears a car roll by on wet pavement down the street outside of his apartment. His eyes drift around the room, lingering on the corner of his room by the closet. The same place he’d managed to get himself stuck to the ceiling. Maybe figuring some way to have better control—to not stick to walls and ceilings unless he wanted to, like when he stuck to the car—and exploring these new… abilities (powers? Thomas doesn’t know what to call them) would help.  

“Maybe tomorrow,” Thomas says carefully, “we can go… experiment a little. In a controlled environment.”

Virgil’s lips quirk up into a smile. “You sound like Logan.”

Thomas laughs and runs a hand down his face. “Yeah. It’s probably his idea. But what do you think?”

Virgil nods once. “I think it’s a good one.”

“Good.” He pauses as Virgil pushes up from his position on the bed. “Good night, Virgil.”

The Anxious Side gives him a small two-fingered salute as he sinks out. “G’night, Thomas.”

…

Thomas hits the cement floor hard and grimaces at the jarring impact, his shoulder taking the brunt of it. He groans and coughs a little before rolling to his feet. He pushes sweaty bangs out of his eyes and squints up at the window at the very top of the warehouse wall. Dusty, late afternoon sunlight filters through the small window and the piles of shipping containers cast long, dark shadows in the dimly lit building.

Thomas had found the warehouse on the outskirts of Gainesville the morning after his talk with Virgil, and he’d been coming here every day for almost a week. Two days ago, he’d tweeted out that he was feeling under the weather—and texted Joan and Camden about it—and tried to ignore just how much his stomach twisted uncomfortably with the knowledge that he was now lying to his fanbase as much as he was lying to his friends.

He’d been trying not to think about it.

“On a scale from 1 to 10,” Logan’s measured voice cuts into his thoughts, “how would you rate the effect of that impact on your body’s physical capabilities?”

“All right, Baymax,” Roman quips from where he’s leaned against a shipping container. “You could just ask him if he’s hurt, like a normal person.”

Thomas rolls his shoulder a couple of times, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “About the same as every other time I’ve crash-landed this week,” he says lightly. “So a little winded, but nothing that bad.”

Logan quirks an eyebrow from where he stands a few feet away, then jots something down on a clipboard. “Fascinating.”

Virgil sits perched on the top of an unmarked container, chewing on his thumbnail. “We definitely should have broken something that time.”

Patton—who is sitting beside him, his feet kicking back and forth slightly against the container—looks at Thomas worriedly. “You okay, kiddo? That one looked like it hurt.”

Thomas frowns, then rolls his shoulder slowly one more time. Just to be sure. “Yeah, actually.”

“Well,” Logan says, studying the clipboard in his hands. “That just about confirms it. We can include a notable increase in your physical durability on our list of physiological changes your body has undergone as a result of recent catalytic events.”

“Thomas, you’re virtually indestructible.”

“No,” Logan corrects Roman hastily, waving a pen in the Creative Side’s direction. “That would be hyperbole. However, you have certainly demonstrated an unnatural ability to withstand impact that would, under normal circumstances, severely injure any other human.”

Thomas grabs his water bottle from where he’d set it down by Roman’s feet. He nods his understanding, glancing around the warehouse. Truthfully, it was pretty much the perfect place for what he was doing. As far as Thomas could tell, the warehouse was mostly abandoned. Shipping containers were empty, but they provided a number of walls of various heights for Thomas to use for practice. And, perhaps most importantly, there wasn’t a soul around except for himself.

“It’s probably a good thing,” Virgil quips in reference to Logan’s comment, “given how many times you’ve faceplanted into concrete this week.” He holds his hands up in mock surrender at the disapproving look Patton throws at him.

Thomas acknowledges the comment with a brief glance before he surveys the warehouse again. They’d realized his strength level had markedly increased on day 1. Before things had started to change, Thomas couldn’t even do a pull up. Now? Now he could pull himself up onto a ledge with one arm. In fact, he lifted one of the warehouse boxes—weighing several tons, by Logan’s best estimate—like it was a slightly awkward desk.

“Thomas,” Logan interrupts, “what would you say is your fatigue level?”

Stamina was another thing that Logan had been keeping a close eye on. Usually, Thomas could manage a 2 mile run before he’d start to feel the fatigue. But he’d been working out—experimenting? Training? Honestly he didn’t know what to call it—for nearly eight hours each day. And sure, he’d be tired at the end, but there was still a marked difference in Thomas’s stamina level.

“I’m good,” Thomas tells him honestly. “Starting to feel it a bit, but I want to keep going.”

The one thing that continued to be a problem for him, really, was this whole “sticking/not sticking” thing. He was getting better as the days passed—practice makes perfect, as Patton kept telling him—but it wasn’t coming as naturally as the stamina or the strength. He kept falling or slipping. Again and again and again.

Logan hums in thought and writes down something else. “As you wish.”

Thomas’s gaze zeroes in on a stack of shipping containers a few yards away. He bounces on his feet a few times, stretching his neck. He flexes his fingers. His shoulders tense. He breathes in. Out.

He takes off sprinting.

Thomas kicks off the ground as he rushes up to the tower of containers, his hands finding unnatural purchase against their smooth walls. He kicks his feet up against it, grinning a bit to himself as they stick. He huffs a breath.

He climbs quickly as if it’s a ladder—hand, foot, hand, foot—and reaches up for the edge of the top container. He glances down and immediately wishes he hadn’t. At the same time that he realizes just how high up he really is, Thomas feels his feet slip. His hands let go. The ground rushes up to meet him very suddenly.

The wind leaves Thomas’s lungs. He wheezes, coughing in a desperate attempt to get air back. He lays there for a moment, waiting for the world around him to stop spinning. The lighting fixtures set up into the scaffolding of the warehouse ceiling turn briefly into double and triple images. Thomas squeezes his eyes shut, waiting for the high-pitched ringing in his ears to abate.

When he opens his eyes again after a long moment, he sees Roman standing above him. The Creative Side offers a hand, and Thomas accepts it as Roman helps him up to his feet.

“What happened?” Roman asks, walking back with him. “You were almost there.”

Thomas shakes his head without answering. He doesn’t know.

Wordlessly, Thomas turns on his heels once they get back to the starting point and faces the tower of shipping containers again. He breathes. He tenses. His weight shifts forward to the balls of his feet. He takes off running again.

Thomas scales the side of it just like he had before, getting about three quarters of the way up before his hands slip, his feet suddenly letting go. He plummets to the floor again.

“Thomas,” Logan says quietly when the host manages to push back up to his feet and stalk back towards the starting point again.

“He has to do this, Logan,” Roman says with a certain edge to his voice. “It’s not like it’s that hard!”

“Maybe he can’t,” Virgil quips.

“He _has_ to.” Roman’s voice is a little higher than Thomas is used to hearing it. Something about it only spurs him on.

“Roman—” Patton tries, but Thomas doesn’t hear what his Morality is saying as he takes off at a dead run for the stack of shipping containers again.

This time, he feels his fingertips brush the very edge of the top container. Then he slips.

Thomas yelps in surprise, reaching blindly. One hand makes contact with the side of the containers as he slides down, and he feels a sharp pull in his shoulder as the hand sticks, abruptly stopping his fall. He grits his teeth, reaching his other hand up. The first hand lets go before he’s ready, and Thomas falls clumsily the rest of the way.

He lands awkwardly on his feet, the harsh impact bringing him to his knees. It sends a jolt of pain shooting up his body. Thomas falls forward onto his hands and knees, his eyes stinging. He takes a second to catch his breath.

“I think that’s enough for now,” Patton says from a distance, uncharacteristically firm. Thomas can hear a set of footsteps behind him, getting closer.

“Y-Yeah,” comes Roman’s voice, distant. It sounds tight and pained. “Yeah, okay. I’m gonna—” A grunt. “I’m gonna go lay down.”

The footsteps are right behind him now. Thomas hears Logan’s voice speak up from behind him, unusually gentle for the Logical Side. “Breathe, Thomas.”

Perhaps ironically, Thomas doesn’t have the breath to respond. He nods, hating the way his arms feel suddenly like jelly. His exhale is shaky. He bows his head and tries to focus on catching his breath. The concrete is cold and grounding, and Thomas leans so that his forearms and forehead are against the floor. It helps with the lingering dizziness.

After a moment, Thomas pushes himself up so that he’s just kneeling on the floor. Logan is standing in front of him now. The clipboard is gone. The internet personality glances around the warehouse and notices that Roman is nowhere to be seen. Patton stands a few steps behind Thomas, his eyes bright and worried. Virgil stands a few feet back. There’s something unreadable about his expression.

“Are you… all right?” Logan asks.

Thomas takes a deep, slow breath. It doesn’t shake as much. “Yeah,” he says unconvincingly. He pushes himself to his feet.

“It’ll come, kiddo,” Patton says as Thomas brushes past him.

Thomas doesn’t answer as he walks out of the warehouse.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost a month later, here’s chapter 5! So sorry for the delay. I hope you enjoy it! <3 Shoutout to @creativenostalgiastuff on Tumblr for her help as always. Edited by yours truly so all mistakes are mine.

_Sorry for the delay, everyone!_ Thomas types out for Twitter, a couple days later. _Wasn’t feeling great but we’re back at it! New CT coming to you soon!_

He pauses, then looks up at Joan across from him, sitting on a chair in Picani’s office. “Hey, what if we did a livestream tomorrow?”

He still feels bad for having gone MIA for a week. Or, as MIA as Thomas ever really went. He’d texted Joan, Camden, and Talyn basically every day to tell them he still wasn’t feeling his best. It wasn’t… a total lie, he’d told himself despite the guilt that sat uncomfortably in his stomach. It definitely hadn’t helped that he’d consequentially been postponing finishing up the filming of Cartoon Therapy due to his absence. It had been a couple of weeks now without any video to post on either channel.

Joan looks up from laptop poised across their lap. “Uh, I can do that. As long as it ends before 6, ‘cause my piano lesson starts at 6:30.”

Thomas smiles. “Perfect. I just feel bad for making them wait, y’know?” _To make up for it,_ he adds to the tweet, _we’ll be having a Livestream tomorrow at 4! Open to everyone, not just members. Hope to see you all there!_

“You can’t help that you got sick,” Joan replies as Thomas sends the tweet out. “They understand.”

“Yeah, but… y’know.” Thomas lifts a shoulder. “I just wanna do something for them.”

“It’s cool, man,” Joan replies. “I think it’s a good idea. And it’ll give us a nice break from the editing and shit.”

“Speaking of—” Thomas grabs the pen and journal prompts from the bookcase behind him—"how’s Camden handling his part of things? I haven’t talked to him about the vid in a while.”

“I think he’s almost done,” Joan replies. “We just gotta finish the last of Picani and we should have the rest of the footage he needs to finish his section.”

Thomas nods and adjusts the knot in the pastel green tie around his neck. It had seemed like every time they’d tried to film the rest of Picani, something got in the way. Thomas loved acting and he loved the filming stage of videos, but a small part of him just wanted to be done with it. The sooner he could be done filming, the sooner he could focus on… more pressing issues.

“Then let’s finish Picani,” Thomas says lightly. “We’ve just got the last scene with Valerie’s character, right?”

Joan nods. “Yep. Shouldn’t take long at all.”

“Awesome.” Thomas glances in the viewfinder and pushes the bangs that were falling into his eyes out of the way. “Ready when you are.”

Joan hits record on the camera, then looks down at their script. “I have to be the adult, y’know?”

Thomas taps his pen against his mouth, looking carefully at Valerie’s sightline. “You know, Elena… Danny’s older sister feels that way for much of the show, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Jazz is only a couple of years older than Danny. But she often feels like she has to be the adult in the family because she sees her parents as a bit… immature.” Thomas leans forward slightly. “So she acts way older than she really is. But that mentality ends up backfiring on her when she takes it a little too far.”

“Too far?”

Thomas places his pen on top of his journal in his lap. “In Season 2 Epsiode 7, Danny has to fight a ghost that can only be seen by kids while he’s on vacation with his family. Since Jazz acts and thinks of herself as an adult even though she’s only 16, she can’t see the ghost and starts to think—along with her parents—that Danny is going crazy.” Thomas pauses, remembering that they’d wanted to cut in with a video clip there. Then he continues. “Though her concern is well-intentioned, it leads her to trapping Danny and the ghost goes after their parents. It’s not until Danny is able to get Jazz to act like a kid again that she’s able to see the ghost, and ultimately help to save her family.”

Joan rolls their eyes to keep in character as they read Valerie’s lines. “Fine, but my family’s not under attack by ghosts.”

Thomas sighs. “You’re right. But the point is that Jazz thought acting like an adult was helping the people around her, when it really wasn’t. When she actually started acting her age was when she was able to be the most help—especially to her little brother, who was the whole reason she’d been acting so much older in the first place.”

“Huh…”

“From that point on,” Thomas continues, “Jazz tries to find a balance. She’s a mature person, and nobody was asking her to change that. But she also comes to understand the importance of still being a kid. She learns how to balance the two in a way that doesn’t ask her to sacrifice any part of who she is.”

Joan pauses. “I… guess I could try that. Maria isn’t a little kid anymore, even though I still think of her as my baby sister.”

Thomas gives a small, encouraging smile. “It’ll take some time. Learning balance is not as easy as flipping a switch. But it’s something we can continue to work on. It might even help your relationship with your sister in ways you don’t expect.”

Joan gives a single nod. “I’d like that.”

“Great!” Thomas grins. “So I’ll see you next week?”

“Definitely. And… thanks, Dr. Picani.”

“Any time, Elena.”

…

“We can tell them. Should we tell them? We can tell them. I think. Wait…”

Thomas laughs as Joan stumbles through their thoughts about half an hour in to the livestream. He laughs even harder when he sees the chat blowing up with people asking Joan to just say it already. They’d decided to go back to Thomas’s apartment for the livestream, if only for sake of tradition. Not every livestream had been from this location, but Thomas wanted some of the normalcy back. And Joan, though they’d seemed puzzled, didn’t appear to mind.

“I’m good to tell them who it is,” Thomas says.

“Wait, who as in the…” Joan arches an eyebrow. “Or…” They tilt their head. Perhaps strangely enough, Thomas knows exactly what they’re asking.

He laughs again. “Real name, not the character name.”

“Yeah, okay. That’s what I was thinking.” Thomas and Joan both look back at the camera.

“It’s Valerie,” Thomas says. “The new character we’re introducing is played by my friend, Valerie. Some of you probably know her, since she’s been in… a good number of our videos. We got really lucky that the schedules worked out, since she’s auditioning in Orlando at the moment.”

“Yeah, she’s actually been in a lot,” Joan says. They start counting on their fingers. “Reasons to Smile.”

“On the Spot in the Spotlight,” Thomas supplies. “Which we’re still planning on bringing back.”

“The first Tongue Twisted.” Joan snaps their fingers and points at him. “She’s been in a few of your shorts videos, too.”

“I feel like we’re missing something.” Thomas glances at the chat and smiles at the people shouting SANDERS SIDES in all caps. “That’s right! Goodness gracious, she was in two of the Sanders Sides videos.” He shakes his head. “Sorry, guys. Guess I’m still a little out of it.”

He manages a small, apologetic smile. But a moment later, there’s a flood of messages in the chat telling him not to worry, asking if he’s feeling better, reminding him to rest and drink water… he feels a sharp twist of guilt. He tries not to linger on it.

“Let’s see… other questions….” He watches the chat closely, the knot in his stomach loosening slightly as the messages filter from well wishes to questions again. One of them makes him frown. “Someone’s asking if I’ve seen the Ekko videos?” He glances over his shoulder towards Joan. “I haven’t. Is that a new thing? I don’t know if I’ve heard of them.”

Joan looks suddenly uncomfortable. They shrug, but its awkward and forced. “Yeah. It was all anyone was talking about a couple days ago.”

Thomas hadn’t been checking social media over the past week. A part of him felt relieved that they’d at least moved on from trying to identify who “Spider-Man” was. “What are they?”

Joan gives him a quick look. “I’ll… tell you after the livestream.” Thomas couldn’t quite read their expression, but there was a warning look in their eyes that made him nod his agreement. Whatever it was, Joan didn’t want to talk about it with an audience. They wanted to change the subject.

At Thomas’s nod, Joan leans forward to read the scrolling chat feed until they find a different question. Thomas glances at the screen as well, and sees a few questions with “Spider-Man” in them—they go too fast for him to identify what exactly they’re asking—and feels himself tense. Joan doesn’t seem to even notice the questions.

“Here’s one,” they say after a brief pause. “Thomas, if you could be any kitchen appliance, what would you be?”

As the livestream continues, Thomas finds himself falling into old, comforting habits. He’d always had fun doing livestreams, especially ones with Joan. He appreciated their ability to be thoughtful and intellectual one moment and crack a joke that would make Thomas’s stomach hurt from laughing the next. A part of him feels like he appreciates it now more than ever. Joan is his best friend, and he can tell them anything.

_Well… almost._

The idea of telling them about the recent… abilities Thomas had come to acquire made his stomach squirm and his heartbeat quicken. He couldn’t quite explain why. Joan would probably be skeptical—even _Thomas_ hadn’t believed it at first—but the powers were something he could prove, a voice that sounded an awful lot like Logan reminded him. He’d been proving his abilities to himself all week, after all. Maybe he knew there was a chance that Joan would freak out and never talk to him again. _They wouldn’t do that._ The thought sounds like Patton.

Even so, something whispers _safer to not tell them_ in the back of his mind, and Thomas can’t help but believe it.

“I gotta go soon,” Joan says. They look at Thomas. “Should we end with Mind Meld or something?”

Thomas pushes his bangs out of his eyes. He smiles. “Yeah, let’s do it.” Thomas pauses, thinking of his first word. “Okay. Ready?”

“Yeah.”

“3. 2. 1. Giant,” Thomas chimes at the same time that Joan says, “Apple.”

Thomas laughs. “Giant and apple?” He makes a face. “I don’t even know where to go with that.”

Joan grins in amusement, then thinks. “Okay. I think I have one. Super and apple.”

Thomas stares at them in uncertainty before he gets an idea. “Okay. I do too. It’s kinda weird, though.”

“3. 2. 1. Honeycrisp,” Joan says at the same time Thomas spits out, “New York.”

“I was thinking like, a giant apple. New York?” Joan laughs. It makes Thomas laugh too.

“I was thinking like, ‘giant as in ‘big’ and then—”

“And then you went to Big Apple,” Joan finishes. “Okay. I kind of get that. Honeycrisp and New York. Uh.”

Thomas’s eyes widen as he frantically tries to think of some sort of connection before one occurs to him. “Okay! I think I got one. It’s… broad-ish?”

“Broadish?” Joan starts laughing again. “That’s very helpful.”

“Okay, like,” Thomas waves a hand. “Kinda broad.”

Joan furrows their brow before shrugging. “What the heck. 3. 2. 1.”

Thomas says ‘vendor’ and Joan says ‘food’. It takes another round before they both eventually end up saying ‘restaurant’. Thomas grins when they finally get there. He looks back at the camera.

“Took us a minute but we got there! Thanks for sticking around, guys. This was a lot of fun. Super glad we had the chance to do this.” He glances at the chat, laughing at all the reactions of people playing along. In the midst of the messages—some of them now transitioning to sweet goodbyes—he sees one that catches his eye.

_oof after that ekko vid I could use a new reasons to smile_

Something uncomfortable sits in Thomas’s chest, but he flashes a quick smile at the camera. “Love you all! Bye!”

He stops the livestream and closes his laptop. Joan sits back in their chair, the spark of amusement from the game of mind meld fades out of their eyes. He’s reminded suddenly of the solemn, uncomfortable look Joan had given him when he’d asked during the livestream about whatever the ‘Ekko video’ was about.

“I saw that message. I know what you’re thinking,” Joan chimes in quietly after a moment. “It’s… not something you really wanna watch, dude. Trust me.”

“Why?”

Joan sighs and reaches for their water bottle. “It’s just… this thing that freaked everyone out. I don’t know how to explain it, but Talyn had nightmares after they watched it.” They take a drink. “I think it’s just someone trying to get some attention. The best thing to do is probably not to give it to them, y’know?”

Thomas nods absently as Joan pushes back from the table and heads towards the kitchen. Talyn didn’t really spook easily. They played horror games for fun in the dark alone. Thomas had never really been that kind of person. But he can’t deny that he’s curious. A part of him does want to know, if only out of a morbid kind of curiosity of what could have that kind of impact on his friends. Even though Joan had talked about Talyn’s reaction, it was clear to Thomas that it had bothered them too.

Dishes clatter in the sink as Joan sets the water bottle they’d borrowed from Thomas amongst the plates and bowls that Thomas hadn’t gotten around to cleaning yet. Neither of them said anything, letting the whir of the AC unit fill the uncomfortable silence between them. Something about it had gotten under Joan’s skin. Something they weren’t telling Thomas.

Thomas opens his mouth to ask them about it when Joan interrupts him suddenly. “I don’t know, man. It was weird and it felt like a warning of some sort. Maybe that’s why Talyn and I both felt a little paranoid after we watched it.” Their dark eyes flicker up to Thomas as they turn from the sink to look at him through the cut out opening above the counter into the living room. “I just don’t really want to dwell on it.”

Thomas caves and nods. “Okay.”

“But if you want to do another Reasons to Smile, that might be fun. A few people in the chat were suggesting it. Maybe that’d be a good idea.” They cross back into the living room and grabs their jacket from the back of the chair.

“Sure,” Thomas says, still a little lost in his thoughts. What could be so bad about that video? “Yeah, I’ll reach out to Camden and the team and whoever is in town to see if they might wanna join in. Maybe I can get Lee or Mary Lee to join this time.”

“Cool.” Joan stops after they’ve pulled their jacket on. Thomas can feel their gaze on him. “You okay?”

Thomas blinks and shakes his head to clear it. “Yeah. Just worried,” he says honestly. He offers a faint smile. “You and Talyn don’t usually get freaked out easily.”

Joan gives him a look. “We have anxiety,” they deadpan teasingly. Thomas huffs a laugh, even though it does little to expel the tightness in his chest. Joan sighs softly. “Really, Thomas. We’re okay.”

Thomas nods again. “Okay.”

“I gotta run,” Joan says, sounding faintly apologetic. “I’m gonna be late for my lesson.”

Thomas gives them a smile that he hopes is reassuring. “Go. Love you.”

“Love you too.” Joan closes the door behind them.

…

Thomas slips his phone into the back pocket of his jeans and cranes his neck up towards the night sky. It’s  little late to be posting the Sunday Shout-Out video, but he liked the nighttime. The parking lot is empty except for his car, and even though he knows he ought to just go home given the hour, a part of him wants to stay out just a little longer.

Thomas sighs and jumps up on the trunk of his car and sits. He fold his hands behind his head and leans back against the windshield, looking up at the stars. Most of them are drowned out by the streetlights that illuminate the lot, but Thomas doesn’t mind. A cool breeze plays with the ends of his hair. It’s calming.

Thomas sighs and closes his eyes.

“I really ought to insist that you go home before too much longer, Thomas.”

The internet personality smiles faintly at the sound of his Logical Side’s voice. He cracks an eye open to find Logan standing beside the car, his arms crossed over his chest and an eyebrow cocked. Thomas’s lips curl up in a faint smile.

“I know, Logan.”

“If you know, then why do you appear to be falling asleep in the middle of an abandoned parking lot?”

Thomas sits up. “I wasn’t falling asleep.”

Logan hums, seemingly unconvinced. “All the same. Optimal rest is necessary for you to maintain a healthy lifestyle.”

“I know.” Thomas shakes his head a little, still smiling, and leans back again. “But this is nice.”

“This?” Thomas can hear the skepticism and confusion in Logan’s voice and tries not to laugh.

“Yes,” Thomas replies. He shifts over. “Take a seat. Try it out for yourself.”

There’s a brief pause, and Thomas isn’t sure whether or not Logan is going to take him up on the offer. Then Logan climbs up on the car, mirroring Thomas’s position beside him except for the folding his hands across his stomach rather than behind his head. Thomas smiles again. He’s a little surprised, although he supposes he shouldn’t be. Logan was the part of him that sought to learn, after all. And if Logan didn’t understand the appeal of something, he could usually be convinced to try it at least once.

“See?” Thomas says after a moment. “It’s nice.”

Logan doesn’t reply right away. “Perhaps.”

“The whole day was kind of nice, actually,” Thomas continues. He lets his eyes drift closed again. “It felt… normal.”

“Normal is a widely subjective term, Thomas.”

“Normal for me, I mean.” He takes in a deep breath of the night air. “Filming, livestreaming, hanging out with Joan. I think maybe I needed that. I needed a day to just be… normal again. Maybe not everything has to change, y’know?”

Logan doesn’t say anything. Thomas feels him shift beside him and he cracks an eye open. Logan is looking up at the sky. The streetlights reflect off the lens of his glasses. A short gust of wind tugs at the end of his stiped tie. There’s something in his expression that Thomas can’t quite read.

He doesn’t dwell on it. Thomas follows Logan’s gaze back up to the sky. “Do you remember,” Thomas asks, “when I was like, seven and wanted to be an astronaut?”

“Yes,” Logan replies. “I do remember that. It was an aspiration that lasted for nearly a full year.”

Thomas glances over at him. “Do you wish I still wanted that?”

Logan adjusts the frame of his glasses before folding his hands across his stomach again. “I don’t believe it’s that simple. I was more than content at your chosen field, Thomas, short-lived as your use of it may have been.”

“You’re talking about chemical engineering.”

“Indeed.” Logan is still looking up at the sky above them. “Although, such fields of study have many unexpected benefits. Perhaps it will prove useful yet.”

The corner of Thomas’s lips curls up in a faint smile. “Perhaps,” he says, echoing Logan from a moment ago. A comfortable silence settles between them. For all the times that Logan and Thomas had been at odds with each other, he’d never doubted that Logan was doing his best to look out for him, just like all of them always did. Most of the time, Thomas found Logan’s company a quiet kind of grounding. Calming. Tonight was no exception to that.

Thomas listens to the crickets and sound of distant car tires rolling on pavement for a long moment. His eyes drift shut again.

“You are getting tired,” Logan says softly, moments before Thomas was about to fall asleep. “I really must insist that you go home to ensure your safety.”

Thomas blinks his eyes open and sits up. He scrubs a hand across his eyes, bangs falling across his face in the process, and smiles tiredly at Logan as the Logical Side sits up beside him.

“You got it, Logan.” He pauses, the smile a little. “And… thanks.”

…


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s been forever. I have mixed feelings about this chapter, but I hope you all at least enjoy it. Sorry for the wait! Thanks for the patience. <3

Thomas drums his fingers on the steering wheel as he rolls his car to a lazy stop at a red light a couple of days later.

They’d just released the newest Cartoon Therapy after a few days of non-stop editing. The response had been overwhelmingly positive and incredibly sweet, though it had only been released about two hours ago. Thomas had met at the office with the entire team involved—at least those who were still in town—and hosted a watch party. It had been fun. Needed.

He’d also been managing to spend at least a couple of hours in the evening at the warehouse. Logan continued to take notes on a clipboard, making suggestions to test out just how much Thomas was able to do. They’d learned two days ago, for example, that Thomas had a much higher vertical jump than the average human being. Roman made suggestions of his own, many of which either Logan or Virgil refute when he suggested something that was maybe a little _too_ risky. Patton had, as always, been a welcome tension relief with puns and humor whenever one of them started to get frustrated.

And Thomas had _definitely_ been getting frustrated.

The light turns green and Thomas eases onto the gas. He has the windows rolled down, and the cool night air runs through Thomas’s hair as he flicks a turn signal and merges lanes.

Thomas couldn’t seem to get a handle on sticking to surfaces. Either he stuck more than he wanted to, or he couldn’t get purchase on anything and would be sent careening towards the concrete. Patton reminded him nearly every night that, in fact, he _was_ improving. And Logan would support that, reminding Thomas that this ability is far outside his usual realm of capability and therefore it made sense that it would be a challenge for Thomas to gain mastery of it.

“If you look at the evidence,” Logan had told him yesterday, “you are showing steady improvement with regards to your manipulation of this… sticking ability. Your ratio of attempt to failure has dropped nearly 25% since you first began.”

It had been nice to hear. Thomas just wasn’t sure where the uneasy feeling in his stomach was coming from. Neither Virgil nor Roman would look at Logan, and they both sunk out before Thomas could ask them about it. He supposes he could have called them back, but Thomas had really just wanted to take the small victory. A 25% improvement wasn’t nothing, right?

Although, when he really thought about it… he wasn’t even sure what he was training for. Originally, it had been to better understand what he was capable of doing because not knowing his own ability had been stressing Virgil—and by extension, Thomas—out. But Thomas didn’t really _feel_ any better about it. He was faster, stronger, could take more hits than a normal person, and could stick to walls. But he didn’t understand—

“ _To those of you driving down Whester Street, stay clear of the intersection with Route 4.”_ Thomas frowns as the radio DJ breaks into his thoughts at the next red light. He’s less than a mile from that location. _“Police are currently on their way, but reports indicate some kind of hostage situation at Spears Bank. Suspect is armed and dangerous according to preliminary reports.”_

Thomas flexes his hands around the wheel. He nearly jumps when he sees Patton sitting in the passenger seat beside him.

“Thomas. You have to go help.”

Thomas releases a long, slow breath in the hopes that it might calm his suddenly racing heart. It doesn’t surprise him in the slightest when he glances in the rearview mirror and sees Virgil’s wide eyes staring back at him.

“Are you kidding?” Virgil leans forward. “The police are on their way, Thomas. You heard the DJ; the dude is armed. He has a gun or something. We could get hurt.”

The host turns right onto Whester and nudges the gas. “Patton’s right,” Thomas says with a certainty that surprises even himself. “I have the chance to do something to help, Virge. I have to try.” His gaze flickers up to the rearview mirror to lock eyes with his Anxiety for a fleeting moment. “You know I can’t just do nothing here.”

“You don’t know the first thing about something like this. You could get somebody else killed.”

“If Thomas doesn’t intervene when he could have,” Patton says, quiet and measured, “he runs that same risk.”

“Virgil,” Thomas says, his grip around the wheel tightening as he sees the bank come into view. “Look, it’d be different if this was happening three weeks ago. But I have these… abilities now. And I don’t know why, but… I feel like they have to mean something, right? Why would I get them if I wasn’t supposed to use them for something good?”

“ _Tell Roman to cool it with the ego_ ,” Virgil growls, a hint of double vocalization leaking in to his voice. Thomas feels a flare of frustration before he glances at Virgil through the reflection again. The Anxious Side had pulled his hood up and he was curling into his hoodie. Thomas can’t see his eyes anymore, and it suddenly makes sense.

 _Virgil’s afraid_.

“Kiddo…” Patton turns to look at Virgil in the backseat as Thomas pulls into the parking lot of the building adjacent to the bank. He can hear sirens in the distance. Patton reaches back and places a hand on Virgil’s knee as Thomas puts the car into park. “I know you’re scared. But… this is the right thing to do.”

Thomas shuts the car off, listening closely to Patton’s words in the sudden silence.

“We can’t keep Thomas from doing the right thing.” Patton’s patient, gentle voice soothes Thomas’s racing heart. He glances at Virgil once again through the mirror and sees him scowl a little.

“Fine.”

Thomas smiles a little. Suddenly a pile of cloth lands in his lap. He unfurls it and realizes it’s the same sweatshirt he’d been wearing when he’d helped Mikey. He looks at Virgil over his shoulder in confusion. The Anxious Side lifts a shoulder.

“There’s gonna be cameras and police around. You’ve gotta protect your identity somehow.”

…

A couple of minutes later, Thomas finds himself crouched low with his back against the wall of a hallway that leads directly out to the bank foyer. He’d managed to find an open side door that led into an empty office. From there, he’d mostly followed the sound of shouting until he found himself just around the corner of the lobby.

He hasn’t looked yet, uncertain if he’d be likely to be seen by doing so. So Thomas had stayed put, listening closely to the footsteps and occasional demand to “shut up” or “hurry up” in a gruff but oddly detached voice.  It felt like he’d been here for minutes. He’s pretty sure it’s only been a few seconds.

Thomas glances across the way to the window at the opposite end of the lobby. In the glass, Thomas can see a teenage girl with an older woman cowering on the floor. Strands of the girl’s hair is falling in small wisps from her hijab. Her eyes are wide and afraid. The older woman is mouthing something in a kind of rhythm, and Thomas thinks it might be a prayer.

It makes his chest twist. He has to help.

“Just give me the _fucking_ money,” the guy shouts. Thomas has still only heard one voice, and he’s pretty sure it’s only been one set of footsteps.

Thomas bounces a little on the balls of his feet underneath him. He tugs the cloth around his face and his hood both up a little as if to reassure himself that they’re secure. He breathes in. _Don’t do anything stupid, Thomas_ , a voice—unmistakably Virgil—warns in his head. He breathes out.

He peeks around the corner.

There’s an older gentleman laying face down on the floor with his hands up by his head. A couple sit on the floor in the opposite corner, one of whom has a bundle of blankets in her arms. They sit with two bank workers. A third stands behind the counter before the gunman. She looks young. Maybe a few years younger than Thomas.

The gunman, on the other hand, looks like he might be in his forties. He has a blonde, receding hairline and a wide jaw. He’s tall, too—at least 6 foot, by Thomas’s guess, and heavier than the internet personality. His blue eyes look slightly gray. He’s waving a pistol around as if it’s an extension of his hand with a flippant dismissal of its danger.

The baby fusses and the mom urgently shushes it, rocking slightly. Even across the room, Thomas can see how badly she’s shaking. The man—the father, Thomas assumes—shifts slightly as if in an attempt to position himself between the gunman and the baby. His eyes haven’t left the weapon in the man’s hands.

Thomas leans back around the corner and deftly stands up. _Think, Thomas_ , he urges himself. _Come on, brain, think of something._

Thomas glances in the reflection of the glass again. If he can get the guy’s attention, it would at least divert it from everyone else. The problem then is that Thomas has sacrificed his element of surprise, and he’s still at a disadvantage because the other man would still have a gun.

 _No matter how fast your reflexes may have improved_ , he can hear Logan saying in his head, _your reflexes are not faster than a bullet, Thomas. Choose carefully._

Thomas glances around the hallway, then out to the part of the lobby he could see from where he was hiding. His eyes flit up towards the ceiling, then arcs an eyebrow. _Well that’s an idea…_

Thomas ignores the sudden churning in his stomach as he takes in a deep breath and releases it slowly and quietly. Then he presses his hands against the wall of the hallway, nodding once to himself when they stick. He brings one foot up, then the other. _Just like the warehouse, Thomas. Nothing you haven’t done before,_ he tells himself.

He tries to not think about how many times he hit the concrete when he did this before.

Thomas instead focuses on climbing up the wall. The ceilings are pretty high in this building, but it only takes him a few seconds to reach it. He takes a breath, relieved when his hands pull effortlessly off the walls. His weight wobbles as his feet stay stuck and gravity works against him. Then he presses his hands to the ceiling in front of him.

“If you don’t hurry up, I’m gonna start shooting.”

Thomas climbs along the paneled ceiling around the corner of the hallway into the lobby. It’s disorienting, to see everything upside down. But he scales the ceiling on his hands and the balls of his feet slowly, inching closer to the gunman and the teller on the other side of the desk. If he can get closer, and drop at the right moment, maybe he can knock the gun out of his hands and have a shot—no pun intended—at a fair fight.

Thomas inches closer. He’s maybe a few inches from being directly above him.

The ceiling panel creaks.

 _Shit_.

Time seems to slow for a moment. Thomas sees the gunman’s gaze flicker up towards the ceiling instinctually, followed by the almost comedic double-take he does when he sees Thomas on the ceiling. Thomas meets his bewildered gaze with a wide one of his own. _Let go let go let go let go—_

“I’m just… dropping in,” Thomas says, right before his feet kick loose and he uses the momentum to his advantage. His hands detach as he swings his feet into the gunman’s face, dropping Thomas from the ceiling. The bulk of Thomas’s weight is driven into the kick and it sends the gunman sprawling.

Thomas lands on top of him and immediately reaches for the gun.

“What the f—” Blood is pouring out of the man’s nose. Thomas rolls off him on instinct, narrowly missing a wide swing from him.

“Get out of here!” Thomas manages to yell to the people surrounding them. Thomas hears shuffling and shouting and the sound of doors opening. There’s movement in his peripheral.

 ** _THOMAS. ON YOUR RIGHT._** That’s definitely Virgil’s voice.

Thomas throws up an arm and lets it take the brunt of a hard swing. There’s a flash of black in the hand he blocked and Thomas wrenches the arm down, grabbing the gun out of the man’s hand.

It’s heavier than he expected.

 He also doesn’t know the first thing about handling it.

He hears the man growl as Thomas tries to scramble out of dodge. It’s an entanglement of limbs and a few sharp jabs to his ribs. Thomas slides the gun across the floor staggers back, sending the weapon clear across the room, scraping against the tile. A quick glance around the lobby tells him that everyone seems to have gotten out okay.

That only left this guy.

“You don’t have to do this,” Thomas tells him right before the guy charges at him.

He could dive out of the way, but then Thomas wouldn’t be between him and the weapon anymore. So Thomas braces for the impact, grunting a little as the man slams into him.  Thomas stays standing, gritting his teeth as he braces his arms against the man still pushing into him. He looks up, startled slightly by just how… _empty_ the man’s blue-gray eyes look.

He snarls, his hand grabbing for the sweatshirt tied around Thomas’s face.

“Nope,” Thomas says quickly, panicked. He reaches a hand up and grabs the man’s wrist. “Can’t do that.”

The room is filled suddenly with flashes of red and blue. Thomas drives a knee up into the man’s stomach, shoving him off. He staggers back with a cough. His face contorts in something like a glare, but there’s no edge in his eyes. There’s no _anything_.

The sudden flood of red and blue also means that the police are here, and that they are likely to break through the front door really any moment. Thomas knows he has to end the fight. Now.

Thomas sees the gun on the floor in his peripheral, but it’s an immediate dismissal. He doesn’t want to kill this man, and he doesn’t even know how to use it in the first place. He has to either knock him unconscious or find some way to tie him up. And Thomas doesn’t really have any way to do the latter.

“I’m sorry,” Thomas says apologetically, the man starts to advance again. Thomas turns and kicks sharply, his foot connecting right below the jaw. The man sprawls to the floor. He doesn’t move.

_What if you killed him?_

The question makes panic clutch at Thomas’s throat. He rushes to the gunman’s side, relieved to see the rise and fall of his chest. He releases a breath. He’s alive. Just unconscious, with maybe a dislocated jaw. Thomas sees movement against the red and blue lights streaming in through the windows. He knows he has to leave before the police get in here.

He’s just about stand up and run when he sees something on the floor slightly underneath the man that makes him stop. A black rectangle of cardstock. Thomas picks it up, his brows creasing together in curiosity. He flips it over. In neat white print, the other side reads one word.

E K K O

Thomas hears shouting from outside and slips the card into his pocket, ducking back into the hallway and breaking out of the emergency exit just as he hears the front doors of the bank open. Thomas doesn’t stop running until he gets to his car.

…

Thomas’s hands are shaking when he jumps back into the driver’s seat. He pulls harshly at the sweatshirt wrapped around his mouth and nose until it’s in a loose heap around his neck. He takes a breath.

“Thomas.” Logan is sitting in the middle of the backseat, leaning forward intently. “You are not injured. Everybody made it out safely. Even the gunman was hurt only enough to render him unconscious. Breathe.”

Thomas nods. “I can’t believe I did that,” he replies, panting for breath.

“I don’t understand.”

“That was crazy!” Thomas doesn’t know at this point of it’s adrenaline or panic that’s coursing through his system but his nerves are buzzing and his heart is racing. Thomas feels more alert and awake than he can ever remember feeling.

Roman’s voice pipes up from the passenger seat beside Thomas. “We just actually faced a guy with a gun, Logan. And Thomas knocked him unconcious.” Even in the dark, Thomas can see something bright and excited shining in Roman’s eyes.

Thomas looks over his shoulder to his Logical Side. Logan shrugs, his lips pursed in thought. “It makes sense. Your increased agility, reflexes, and strength capabilities would improve your precision and power behind your attacks. I cannot say I’m surprised that you were able to do what you did tonight.”

“You were a _hero_ again, Thomas.” Roman sounds exhilarated. “You saved people tonight.”

Thomas hears a familiar whooshing sound. The host glances in the rearview mirror to see Virgil sitting beside Logan, his hands shoved in the pocket of his hoodie. He looks… exhausted. Thomas opens his mouth to ask him if he’s okay, but Virgil cuts him off with an annoyed glare at Roman.

“Sure, but he risked a lot, too.” His gaze flickers over to Thomas, who twists around to look at Virgil directly. “What if you hadn’t been fast enough to stop him when he tried to pull the sweatshirt down and he knew who you were? What if you hadn’t been close enough to tackle him before he saw you?”

The questions are sobering. Thomas can feel the initial adrenaline start to drain out of him and he nods. For a moment, nobody says anything. Thomas glances at Roman, who’s crossed his arms over his chest and is resolutely staring out the window. Thomas can’t see his expression. A quick glance in the rearview mirror tells Thomas that Logan’s brow is furrowed together in thought, as if he was trying to figure out some unseen puzzle.

He hears another whoosh and doesn’t have to look to know it’s Patton.  

“Virgil might have a point, kiddo, but… I’m proud of you for what you did tonight.”

Thomas’s mouth quirks faintly. “Thanks, Patton.” He takes a deep breath, willing some of the lingering tension to ease a little. He can feel Virgil’s gaze on him, all too aware that nobody had any real answers to his questions.

_Speaking of questions…_

Thomas slips his hand into his pocket and pulls out the black cardstock with EKKO written in white. He flips it over a few times in his hands, squinting in the dark. He clicks one of the interior lights of the car on quickly, turning it over again. Nothing. Thomas turns the light off.

“Ekko,” Thomas reads aloud. “Why does that sound familiar?”

“It’s the same name of a video that Joan insisted you don’t watch,” Logan replies without missing a beat. “The unusual spelling does match what your fans had been using in the livestream comments regarding the subject matter as well.”

“That’s…. weird,” Thomas says. Weird sounds like an understatement. The spelling. The timing. Joan’s reaction. That it had seemingly fallen from the man Thomas had fought tonight.

“Indeed,” Logan says. “There are many things regarding the current circumstance that seem… suspicious.”

Thomas sighs again and leans his head against the steering wheel. The longer he sat still, the faster the stale adrenaline was giving way to sleepiness. He needed to drive home before he fell asleep in the parking lot. But he can feel Logan’s curious energy buzzing in the back of his mind, mixing with Virgil’s lingering anxiety over it all into a cocktail that sits uncomfortable in Thomas’s stomach.

“We should look into it,” Thomas agrees. “ _Tomorrow_.”

Logan pauses, then nods and sits back. “Satisfactory.”

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Longer chapter with a hecking lot jammed into it, but I hope it’s an okay read. Was excited about this chapter, so I hope you enjoy the ride! Finished the edits around midnight last night and decided to wait until morning to post. Edited by yours truly. All mistakes are mine. Please let me know what ya think!

The internet personality sits on the couch in the living room of his apartment with his laptop balanced carefully on his thighs. It’s the middle of the afternoon the following day. He’d slept until almost noon, then scrolled through twitter and the news feed that was buzzing with the blurry, confusing security footage from the bank last night.

The spider logo had been visible from the way Thomas had wrapped the sweatshirt around his face, and that’s really all the public seemed to need to stir up excitement again. SPIDER-MAN MAKES A RETURN? had been the basis for nearly every headline Thomas had seen on the subject. News anchors puzzled over the bizarre footage of someone crawling on the ceiling. He’d watched a few interviews with some of the people that had gotten out safely—none of them claimed to know anything about who this “Spider-Man” might be.

Some threads on Twitter called him a “cryptid”. Others called him a “freak”. Law enforcement officials posted about how he should have left the job to professionals rather than go “vigilante”. Most called him a “hero”.

It left a weird, but not necessarily unpleasant, feeling in his stomach.

A few reports talked about the man Thomas had fought: Al Trevors, according to several news articles. He’d been a bus driver, apparently, with a wife and twin boys who were four years old. His wife is a lawyer, who had apparently advised him to not speak to the press. There had been no official statement from Trevors.

Eventually, Thomas stopped looking into the reaction to last night and instead turned his attention to the black cardstock rectangle he’d picked up. It sits beside him on the couch. On Thomas’s laptop, the cursor blinks lazily in the Google search bar.

 “Thomas, are you sure this is a good idea?”

Virgil is standing in his usual space at the bottom of the stairs, his gaze narrowed at the host.

Thomas glances up at him, then back at the card. “No,” he says honestly.

Logan appears beside the staircase before Virgil can so much as open his mouth. He smooths his tie. “Virgil, you know as well as I do that Thomas buying into willful ignorance is likely only to be detrimental.”

Virgil shoots Logan a look. “Yeah, I _know_ , Pocket Protector. I just…” he waves a hand at Thomas’s laptop. “I have a bad feeling about it. That’s all.”

Logan inclines his head. “Understandable, given the limited information we have available to us and your inclination to protect us.”

Thomas watches as Virgil glances quickly at the Logical Side. “Right…”

“However,” Logan continues, a little bit softer, “we have a responsibility. Knowing is always better than not knowing. And you know as well as I do, Virgil, that you would feel an equal level of distress—if not a more prolonged one as well—staying kept in the dark. Especially when there is a potential threat involved.”

Virgil rolls his eyes, but Thomas can see the hesitation of thought in the Anxious Side. He’s listening to Logan. “Knwoledge is our greatest weapon, huh?” he says dryly.

Logan nods once, his certainty undeterred by Virgil’s snark. “And our greatest defense.”

Virgil pauses. Then he groans, scrubbing a sweatshirt-covered hand across his eyes. “Fine, Thomas. Look it up.”

Thomas takes a breath as Logan crosses over towards the couch and sits beside him. Virgil sits on the other side. Thomas types “ekko” into the search bar and presses enter.

The first thing that pops up is a link to the YouTube video that Joan had been talking about. It’s titled “The First Warning”. The internet personality hovers his cursor over the link. The thumbnail is a blank, black screen.

Virgil doesn’t say anything, but Thomas doesn’t miss him flipping his hood up over his hair. It’s accompanying a tightening in Thomas’s stomach that makes him scroll further down the page instead of clicking on the link. He senses more than sees Logan glance disapprovingly at him, but the Logical Side doesn’t say anything.

The links below the video are a smattering of people talking about it: Twitter threads, pop culture websites that wrote articles about it, a talk show segment where they chat about it. Thomas wonders if maybe reading about it second hand would be enough.

“Thomas,” Logan says reproachfully. “While it would be better than nothing, a video is not capable of hurting you.”

“Beg to differ,” Virgil snaps.

“You’re stalling,” Logan replies flatly. “You cannot delay this forever.”

“Uh, he absolutely can.”

“Granted. But he _shouldn’t_.”

Thomas scrolls up quickly to the top of the page and clicks on the link before he can lose his nerve. Virgil growls and covers his face with his hands, peeking at the computer screen between his fingers. Thomas’s hands curl into loose fists against his legs. His foot taps quickly against the carpet.

The screen starts with static and a high-pitched whine. Flashes of news footage from riots, bombings, warzones. Static glitches.

It cuts out.

Thomas can just barely make out a silhouetted figure in the dark screen before a feminine voice starts speaking. “ _Pity, isn’t it?”_

More footage, flashing so quickly that Thomas can’t decipher it all except that it’s all violent. It’s all bloody.

“ _It’s been long enough. It’s time for a new age to rise.”_

The dark screen returns, but the figure steps forward into the minimal light. They’re in a body suit of some kind. Entirely white. It’s a sudden contrast to the dark background. The figure leans in closer to the camera.

“ _Some of you will see me as your hero. Others will fear me. If you’re the latter… I’m coming for you.”_

It sounds like more than an empty threat. It sounds like a promise.

The video cuts out.

Thomas takes a breath and rakes a hand back through his hair. The video is playing back through his mind, trying to piece together the footage as if it might help make more sense. The words play back through Thomas’s mind. _It’s time of a new age to rise._ A new age of what? What did it mean that she’d be “coming for” the people who feared her?

“Virgil, are you all right?” Logan asks and Thomas almost jumps. He’d forgotten two of his Sides were sitting there beside him.

“ **Peachy** ,” Virgil growls back with the double vocalization.

“Thomas,” Logan says, “Please take a deep breath.”

The host closes his laptop and sets it on the coffee table in front of him as he sucks in some air and releases it slowly. He closes his eyes. _Breathe with me, Virge_ , he wills. He takes in another breath and hears Virgil do the same.

Thomas opens his eyes and though Virgil still has his hood pulled up over his hair, the Anxious Side manages a faint twitch of his lips. A reassurance. Thomas nods once to him.

“What particularly was so alarming about that video?” Logan asks after a moment. “Though clearly intended to be threatening, it seems you have seen videos and movies that would warrant a stronger sense of fear than something such as that.”

Thomas swallows and clears his throat. “Virge?” He glances at Virgil on the other side of him.

“I don’t know.” The Anxious Side huffs a little, tugging on the strings of his hoodie. “Something about it just seemed… more real than a horror movie. Like she meant what she was saying, I guess.”

Logan quirks an eyebrow. “Hm. I see.” He eyes Thomas’s closed laptop before speaking again. “Under usual circumstances, I would remark how it seemed a bit over the top in terms of its dramatics. The effects and spliced footage are clearly meant to be a fear tactic with seeming little meaningful substance upon which to base that fear.”

“Aren’t you kind of commenting on that now—”

“However,” Logan continues, interrupting Thomas, “it’s connection to recent events makes me less inclined to dismiss it so easily. A fear tactic? Absolutely. But one so easily dismissed? Perhaps not.”

Thomas rubs the back of his neck, glancing between Logan and Virgil. “So what now?”

There wasn’t anything in the video that suggested a location—either for where Ekko is, or where she’d be next. Thomas didn’t really have another plan of action, and it makes his fingers twitch with a surprising restlessness. It doesn’t help that Ekko’s line about being seen as a hero keeps replaying in his mind in a way that tightens his chest a little with discomfort.

“Well,” Logan says as he adjusts the frame of his glasses, “there are several questions left unanswered, it seems. The first being what connection, if any, does Ekko have to the attempted robbery last night? The video suggests some kind of wide-scale plan, perhaps even global given the use of news footage from around the world. So what business would someone like Ekko have in Gainesville, Florida?”

That _did_ seem unusual, Thomas has to admit. He picks up the cardstock rectangle beside his leg on the couch, rubbing his thumb over the neat white print. E K K O.

“Speaking of wide-scale plan,” Virgil adds, sounding a bit more calm but no less worried than a moment ago, “the next question is… assuming that video isn’t just some fear-inducing media stunt, what is Ekko planning?”

Thomas sighs and scrubs a hand down his face. “Maybe that’s all it really is,” he says. “Maybe she’s just trying to get attention.” He doesn’t quite believe himself, and he sees Logan and Virgil exchange a silent glance. Neither of them says anything, but the quiet that lingers in the apartment is quickly interrupted by Thomas’s ringtone.

It’s Valerie.

“Hey, Valerie,” Thomas says, hoping his voice sounds brighter than he thinks it does. In his peripheral, Thomas sees both Logan and Virgil sink out.

“ _Hey, Thomas!”_ The familiar sound of his friend’s voice helps alleviate some of the tension in his shoulders. “ _I was talking to Joan, Lee, and Terrence and we were thinking of having a game night since everybody’s gonna be in town. Do you wanna join?”_

Thomas smiles with a sudden relief. “Sounds awesome.”

…

“Did you just throw a blue shell, Talyn?! Shit. No, no, _no_ —”

Thomas laughs as he watches his friends play Mario Kart. Joan’s corner of the screen fills with a bright blue light. A cart slams into them as it passes, sending Joan’s cart careening off the edge of the map. Thomas laughs even harder as Terrence’s square announces his victory. Joan curses again, managing to squeak past the finish line in 6th place.

 “Hey, thanks, Talyn,” Terrence comments with an amused, smug smile. Talyn gives him a small salute, snorting with laughter a moment later at the look Joan throws their way.

Thomas smiles and leans back into the couch, picking up his glass of wine and taking a small sip. Turns out, a lot of Thomas’s friends had been free tonight. Lee and Mary Lee came, as did Valerie, Joan, Talyn, Camden, Terrence, and Kenny. It felt like it had been forever since he’d last hung out with his friends without it being with the intention of working on a video. Amicable chatter and friendly argument about the best character to main on Mario Kart fills the room with a warmth and comfort that is interrupted briefly by the arrival of pizza.

Mary Lee announces a food break, causing everyone who was getting ready for another round to set their controllers down as they all break into the various kinds of pizza. It was a reprieve that the internet personality had welcomed with open arms. In fact, Thomas has almost forgotten about the events of the past 24 hours when Kenny speaks up.

“So did you guys hear about that bank last night?”

Thomas shovels a bite of pizza into his mouth to avoid having to answer. _Don’t say anything, Thomas,_ Virgil growls in his mind. Valerie points at Kenny. “Yes! Did you see the security footage?”’

“It’s a little hard to believe it wasn’t doctored somehow,” Lee chimes in as he reaches for another piece. “They swear it isn’t, though. And some of the eyewitness accounts verified that the guy was freaking climbing on the ceiling.”

“I saw this thread on Reddit,” Camden chimes in casually, reaching for a napkin, “arguing about whether or not he should count as a ‘hero’.”

Thomas glances at him. “What’d they decide?”

Camden’s mouth quirks. “It’s Reddit. You really think they arrived at any organized consensus?”

“I think it’s a little weird that he keeps covering his face,” Mary Lee cuts in, then grimaces. “If they are a he. It’s the pronoun that little kid and the hostages were using, but I probably shouldn’t assume that.” She opens a can of Coke and takes a long swallow.

“I don’t totally get why they’re hiding their identity,” Valerie adds. “I mean, both times we’ve seen them, they’ve had half their face covered. Unless they’re doing something wrong—which I don’t think they are—why hide?”

Thomas opens his mouth, but Talyn jumps in before he has a chance to reply. Part of him is grateful.

“I mean, not _everybody_ thinks they’re doing the right thing.” Talyn sets their slice down on the paper plate in their lap. “Besides, if they can climb on the ceiling like that, there’s totally people that would try to capture them and run experiments or some shit.”

Thomas swallows. He reaches for another slice of pizza to avoid looking at any of them, even though the sudden churning in his stomach keeps him from actually taking a bite out of it.

“Talyn’s right,” Kenny says. “Plus, if they’re trying to stop criminals, maybe they’re trying to protect their family too. So bad guys can’t use their loves ones against them.”

“Bad guys?” Lee asks, more curious that argumentative. “So you think they’re a hero?”

Kenny lifts a shoulder. “Yeah, I think so. You guys don’t?”

Thomas doesn’t hear their answers, his thoughts racing ahead of him. Kenny had been right, of course. So had Talyn. Thomas hiding his face had been a mixture of both reasons, but sitting here in a room full of his friends reminds him all over again just how much had changed. How much risk is involved in what he did last night. He hadn’t just been risking his safety, he’d been risking all of theirs, too. After all, the man had reached for the sweatshirt he’d tied haphazardly around his face, and if Thomas had been just a little bit slower on his reflex…

His family would be at risk. Everybody in this room would be at risk. Everybody Thomas ever cared about.

And if he was really going to try to figure out what the whole Ekko business was about… well, that really only put them in more danger.

“Thomas? Joan?” Valerie asks, yanking Thomas abruptly from his thoughts. “What do you think?”

Thomas takes another sip of wine and shrugs, despite his racing heartbeat. He quirks an eyebrow at Joan, willing them to answer first.

Joan adjusts the beanie on their head. “I think it’s probably too early to tell. I mean, so far it seems like he’s tried to help people in need at risk to himself. Most people would probably classify that as a hero, but it depends on what you mean by the word in the first place.”

“Classic Ravenclaw answer,” Lee chimes in lightly, causing everyone to smile.

Joan laughs a little, then grabs the nearest controller. “All right,” they say. “So who am I gonna beat at Rainbow Road?”

“Oh, you’re on, Joan,” Camden announces, grabbing his back from the floor. “Let’s go.”

“Hold on, I’m still eating pizza!”

“Eat fast, Terrence. Rainbow Road waits for nobody.”

Thomas smiles and shakes his head, gathering up the discarded paper plates and napkins. He’s silently grateful none of them remembered that Thomas never answered the question.

…

It’s nearly two in the morning when all four of his main Sides show up at the same time, startling Thomas out of his almost-asleep state. The host groans.

“Really, guys?” he grumbles, but reaches over to the nightstand and flips on the lamp light.

“Apologies, Thomas,” Logan says from his position at the foot of Thomas’s bed. “I thought it would be best to let you rest and come to you with this idea in the morning, but Roman was rather insistent.”

Thomas rubs at his eyes and sits up. “What idea?”

“Roman and I were discussing potential strategies for dealing with some of Virgil’s concerns, and the… four of us—” Thomas frowns at the odd hesitation—“came up with a solution.”

“Oh,” Thomas says, his brow pulling together. “Um… cool. What’s the idea?”

Roman is practically bouncing on the balls of his feet. “A suit!”

Thomas’s confusion only deepens. “A suit?”

Virgil rolls his eyes, but it’s Logan that speaks up. “Of a sort. Not the type of suit you’re thinking, Thomas, but rather a suit designed with your specific superhuman abilities in mind that will maximize your potential while maintaining a certain level of identity protection.”

Thomas blinks a few times, then looks quizzically at Virgil. “Why?”

Virgil ducks his head a little and rubs the back of his neck. “I don’t know. I guess…. Your friends talking earlier got me— _us_ —thinking about how close you’d been last night for your identity getting found out. Logan agreed that we needed something better than a sweatshirt.”

“So I then consulted with Roman,” Logan chimes in, “to see what might work best.”

Roman smiles. “And we came up with a little design idea.” Roman flicks his hand towards Thomas, who gets a sudden, clear picture in his head. A full body suit. Red and blue fabric, dark-purple-nearly-black stitching. A spider silhouette stretching along his torso.

“The spider was my idea,” Patton chimes in.

Thomas looks at Patton, disbelieving. “ _You_ wanted to add a spider? I mean, don’t get me wrong, Patton. I love it. But… I would’ve thought you’d be the last person to want a spider added onto the suit.”

Patton’s mouth tugs into a small, fond smile. “Spiders do freak me out, kiddo. But… I thought it’d be a nice tribute to the first time you helped someone with your new abilities. A reminder of the good you can do.” Mikey babbling about the Ninja Turtles flickers through Thomas’s mind, doubtlessly Patton’s doing. It makes the host’s chest swell.

“It’s perfect,” Thomas says honestly.

“After consulting with Virgil,” Logan adds, “I believe I have a fabric in mind that should be able to be a useful level of durable without being too restrictive in weight or flexibility.”

Thomas’s mind is reeling with the onslaught of ideas. “Wow. You guys all worked together on this?”

Roman is rotating the image around in his mind, giving Thomas a sharpening view of each angle on the suit. He can feel Roman’s excitement thrumming with a sudden burst of creative energy. Virgil seems quieter than he’d been previously, and when Thomas looks at him, he can see the calmer look in his eyes. Patton still has that small, happy smile.

And Logan… well, Logan has something bright and electric simmering just beneath his stoic exterior. He looks invigorated, and Thomas gets the feeling there’s something else that Logan hasn’t told him about yet.

“Indeed,” Roman says in reply to Thomas’s question. “The general aesthetic was my doing, but we each had a hand in its overall design.”

Thomas sees Virgil glance over to Logan. “There’s… one more thing about the suit,” he prompts gently.

Logan flicks his hand towards Thomas and the image in his mind zooms to focus in on the wrist of the suit, breaking it open almost like a blueprint. The host closes his eyes to focus on the schematic that Logan has sketched out in his brain. Logan’s voice floats through his thoughts, providing an explanation.

“I was considering methods for which to solve Virgil’s proposed predicament from last night regarding if you had been seen prior to reaching an acceptable proximity to Al Trevors. I eventually arrived at this concept.”

“I call them Web Shooters,” Patton chimes in brightly. “Y’know, like a spider web?”

“Indeed,” Logan says. “Although spider webs are generally lightweight and easy to dismantle, so such a term may be a bit misleading. Regardless of what you call them, I think we could construct a device that would allow you to essentially project a strong adhesive substance from your wrist or hand when activated. It could be used as a rope to retrieve things, or perhaps even to use to your advantage in terms of travel.”

Roman’s voice jumps in. “You could be like freaking Tarzan.”

Logan’s voice hums, unamused. “The point is, I see several uses for this kind of device, and I think it’s worth developing.” Thomas’s mind is suddenly overtaken with a string of chemical equations running through his mind. “I’ve already begun developing a formula, although I could use a refresher given how long it has been since your experience as a chemical engineer.”

“Oh!” Patton’s voice again. Thomas opens his eyes, his bedroom and Sides coming back into focus even as Logan continues to scroll the chemical equations through his mind. “Why don’t you see if Dr. Washington could help? Remember her, Thomas?”

Thomas does. She’d been one of Thomas’s favorite professors. “It’s been a while, but I can email her.”

Patton’s grinning as Thomas reaches for his computer. “Perfect! We’ll leave ya to it, kiddo.”

When Thomas looks up again from his computer screen, all of them have sunk out. They’re excited energy radiates through his mind. He has a feeling he won’t be getting back to sleep any time soon.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a minute! So very sorry for the delay, everyone. Life's been pretty busy lately.   
> The science of this chapter is based in the lab notebook page we get a glimpse of in Spider-Man: Homecoming for Web Fluid 3.0. I found a picture of it online and used that as my baseline for the science of their development of this formula. I am not a chemical engineer. If you are, I beg for suspension of disbelief. ^u^  
> Huge shout-out to @creativenostalgiastuff on Tumblr for helping me out with this chapter in so many ways at so many stages of its process.

Three days later, Thomas makes his way down the hallway of the third level of the engineering building of his old college.

It had been a little odd being on campus so long after graduation. So much had changed from when he’d thought he’d be a chemical engineer; he’d gotten famous on Vine. He’d started YouTube as a full-time gig. He hadn’t done any chemical engineering work since his first job out of college, and he’d only done that for a few years. Thomas remembered the late coffee-fueled nights of studying in the library, the stupid adventures with friends for donuts at midnight, the tears shared over failed tests and where their lives would be going …

So much had changed for Thomas in the years since his graduation. The campus, however, seemed to be exactly the same except for a few updates to the old brick buildings he’d spent four years walking past.

Thomas approaches the lab down the hall and can hear music floating from under the wooden door. He’d sent the email to his old engineering professor, Dr. Washington, the same night that the Sides had given him the idea for the suit and webshooters. She’d responded the next morning, telling Thomas that she’d be doing research work with her lab assistant most of Wednesday and to drop by whenever he was free. Thomas spent most of the day in-between working with Logan to come up with some ideas for the formula, however incomplete it clearly was. At least he would have notes to give Dr. Washington as a starting place.

As Thomas raps a knuckle against the door, he can make out the suddenly familiar song. _“And they’re gonna see what stop the presses really means! And the old will weep and go back to sleep—”_

Thomas opens the door, smiling. “You’re listening to _Newsies_ , Dr. Washington?”

The lab is relatively spacious; black tables are filled with various vials, beakers, and equipment that takes Thomas back to his own lab assistant days. The tiled linoleum floor reflects the fluorescent lights above. On the other side of the room, Thomas sees Dr. Washington—in a lab coat and goggles—look up at the sounds of his entry. Beside her is a man with blonde hair and glasses with something like a laser pointer attached, who looks a few years younger than Thomas, seated in an electric wheelchair.

She grins, sliding the goggles up over her cropped hair. “I told Andrew he could choose the music today.” She nods to the man beside her. “As long as it wasn’t _Les Mis_.”

Thomas laughs at the affronted look on Andrew’s face. He looks at a board attached to his wheelchair, and Dr. Washington leans over, reading. “I S-T-- still don’t know what you H-A-- have against L-E-S _Les Mis_.” She quirks an eyebrow at him. “Nothing, the _first eighteen times_ we listened to it.”

Thomas smiles. “Only eighteen? Then you’re fine. When you get into like, the thirties is when you maybe consider listening to a different musical.”

Dr. Washington points a finger at him. “Don’t encourage him, Thomas. Having one thespian in my midst is enough. I feel outnumbered now.” Andrew looks at the board again and she leans over to read. “I like him. He G-E-- gets it.” Dr. Washington rolls her eyes. “Of course you do.”

Andrew and Thomas grin at each other.

Dr. Washington screws the lid onto a petri dish and scribbles something on it. She sets it aside. “I can’t win.” She pulls her gloves off and tosses them into the wastebasket underneath the lab table. “So what brings you in, Thomas? Your email was pretty vague.”

“Right. Well…” The internet personality swings his backpack around from his shoulder and unzips it, digging through it for his notebook. “I have a question about a hypothetical formula.”

“H-Y-P-- hypothetical?”

Thomas pulls the notebook out, flipping through it for the pages he’d been working on with Logan. “I—yeah. I was wondering if I combined salicylic acid, methanol, carbon tetrachloride, touline, H-heptane…” Thomas trails off as he flips through the pages before finding the one with the partial formula he’d been working on, stepping up to the other side of the lab table and setting the notebook open in front of them.

It’s a long moment as Thomas watches both them glance over his notes. Andrew furrows his brows in thought as Dr. Washington flips the single page back and forth. She looks up at Thomas.

Thomas jumps in before she can say anything. “It’s incomplete. I know it is. I’m just not sure what’s missing.”

“Well,” she says, tilting her head slightly as her dark eyes flit over the page, “that depends on what you’re trying to get this substance to do.”

Thomas rubs the back of his neck as he walks around the table to stand on the other side of Andrew. “I was wondering if it’s possible to create a flexible but strong adhesive… thing.”

Andrew’s looking at him with curiosity. Thomas glances down as Andrew uses the communication board, reading his question aloud. “Like a G-L-- glue?” Thomas sighs. “Not exactly. I… was hoping for something a lot stronger and more flexible than glue.”

Dr. Washington hums, tapping a pencil to her mouth. Her brows are furrowed in thought. “I may have an idea. But you’d need to add carbon tetrachloride and ethyl acetate to the list you’ve got here.”

Thomas nods, scribbling that under the list of other chemicals, not picking up his pencil as Andrew adds on.

“S-O-D-I-- sodium T-E-T-R-A-B-- tetraborate could work as an A-C-T-I-V-activator.”

Dr. Washington and Andrew spend the next ten minutes bouncing ideas off each other. Thomas scribbles down as many notes as he can. Dr. Washington starts bustling around the lab, grabbing chemicals and starting equipment up as she goes. Thomas studies the new list and equations they’ve developed, and he can feel Logan’s presence at the forefront of his mind like a comforting weight.

 _Add CC 14, K3Co5 and C7H6O3 after you’ve boiled it_, Logan tells him suddenly. _It’ll help the consistency prior to adding the sodium tetraborate._

Thomas jots that down.

The three of them make themselves busy. Thomas grabs a lab coat and pair of safety goggles from the cabinet near the door. Dr. Washington hands Andrew an iPad, and he pulls up a software that Thomas isn’t familiar with and inputs a series of chemical equations. Dr. Washington swirls a clear liquid in a flask as she crosses the lab.

The hours pass by in a flurry of scientific trial and error. Andrew runs simulations on the iPad before they adjust the formula each time fails—something that Thomas is especially grateful for when the simulation for one particular change involves a small explosion. It hardly absolves them of error, every slight change resulting in something different. In some ways, it serves to remind Thomas one thing he loved about chemistry: it had always been precise and measured. One small change could lead to a very different reaction.

Even when Thomas can feel his frustration rising, Dr. Washington and Andrew make him laugh. Andrew’s nerdiness rivals Thomas’s own, and Dr. Washington’s sarcasm seems to have continued in the years since Thomas had her for class. While they waited for the current fluid to boil, he and Andrew swapped opinions about Kingdom Hearts 3 and Marvel (with a healthy debate about Captain America’s arc in _Endgame_ ) and musicals.

“It’s a shame that Dr. Washington is a musical hater,” Thomas teases, being sure to speak loud enough that it was obvious he wanted the professor in question to hear.

Andrew shakes his head, tapping a few things on the iPad in his lap. Through the speakers in the lab, Thomas hears a familiar song that’s a quick change from the music of _The Prom_ that they’d been listening to a moment ago. It’s Hairspray. Specifically, “Run and Tell That”.

Dr. Washington’s eyes flicker up across the room to the two of them. “Andrew, I will forever regret telling you that.”

Thomas raises his eyebrows. “Tell you what?” Andrew has an amused glint in his eyes as he meets Thomas’s gaze, then looks to his board. Thomas leans over. “She told me she was M-A-Y-- Maybelle in a C-O-M-M-- community theatre P-R-- production.” Thomas looks at his old professor. “Wait… _really?_ ”

Dr. Washington shoots a mock glare at Andrew. “Traitor.”

Andrew laughs before Thomas reads his reply aloud. “If any of us are a T-- traitor, it’s you. You hate L-E-S _Les Mis_.”

Dr. Washington pulls the pencil out from behind her ear and points it at him. “Of all the musicals we can agree on, Andrew, you’re going to get hung up on one that I just _happen_ to think is overrated?” Andrew shakes his head sadly. Dr. Washington snorts.

“That’s amazing,” Thomas replies. “I never knew you did theatre.”

Dr. Washington opens her mouth to reply, but sharp _ding_ cuts off her response. The timer signals the need to add the activator and start the de-gassing process. It’s a sudden, sharp reminder of what he’s here to do.

…

 

Thomas blows out a breath as he spins the office chair in a lazy circle. It’s nearly 7 in the evening, and Dr. Washington had gone with Andrew to pick up some dinner for the three of them. Thomas had offered to stay behind and watch their current attempt slowly heat in the flask. The internet personality had written in his notebook that this was trial fifteen.

The empty lab is suddenly quiet, too. Andrew had given Thomas the iPad to play music, but he hadn’t selected anything. Instead, Thomas listens to the quiet gurgling of the fluid in the flask on the table in front of him, the whirring of the AC unit, and a distant, muffled voice of a professor giving a lecture in a nearby room. Not for the first time today, it takes Thomas back to his own time as a student and lab assistant. It felt like such a long time ago.

He’d always been interested in the environment and helping the world on such a big scale. Throughout high school, Thomas used to read articles about scientists engineering new biotechnology that could help slow deforestation, or developing alternative substances to harmful pesticides, or creating more environmentally-friendly methods of gas consumption. He’d always found it interesting, and though he was generally a pretty average student, he’d done well in chemistry.

He remembers talking to his Aunt Patty before he chose a major, during his senior year of high school. She was an elementary school librarian, and she’d been doing that for as long as Thomas could remember. When he asked her how she knew what she wanted to do, she told him to find where his passion intersected with his ability and to pursue it.

But it hadn’t always been that simple, either. Thomas was as passionate about performing as he was about the environment at the time. There was greater job security in an engineering job than trying to make it as an actor, so Thomas had chosen chemical engineering and decided that he could keep performing as a hobby. It had seemed like the most practical solution at the time.

But then he was introduced to Vine, and what started as goofing around on a social media app quickly turned his life around. In a few years, Thomas decided to make performing and social media his full-time job once he realized he could actually make a living out of it. It had fixed the practicality issue, and his fans were so incredibly kind. He realized that, maybe, he could make a positive difference in the world this way, too.

Thomas sighs, standing up to stretch.

Making a positive difference in the world was really his biggest hope with anything he did. It was true when he was a chemical engineer, and it was true now.

 _Now_.

The thought stops Thomas short suddenly. The video he’d watched the other day flickers through his mind again. The card. The entire reason he was here in the first place was to help others, right?  But he thinks again about the video—the footage, the threat—and feels something uneasy settle in his stomach.

“We’re in way over our head, Thomas.”

Thomas jumps slightly. “What?” He’d been so lost in his roaming thoughts that he hadn’t even noticed that Virgil had risen up by one of the tables to Thomas’s left, in his familiar hoodie and a black shirt underneath. “What do you mean?”

Virgil shoves his hands into the pockets of his hoodie, scowling. “I _mean_ this isn’t our fight. Not really.”

Thomas blinks, taken aback. “I—”

“Look, Ekko made a threatening video but there are people in place to protect everyone. Police. Military, if it comes to that.” Virgil shakes his head, looking away from Thomas. “You _just_ got these powers a few weeks ago. You can’t even control your sticking ability. And you really think you can just… take on this kind of fight?”

Thomas holds up a hand, his brow furrowing. “Virge… where is this coming from?”

“Common sense,” Virgil snaps. “Apparently, I’m the only one who has any of it.”

Thomas opens his mouth, then closes it. He doesn’t know what to say. Maybe Virgil has a point. They don’t even really know what Ekko is capable of, or where to find her, or what she’s planning. Meanwhile, Thomas can’t even fully control his own abilities. He’d been getting better, sure, but it wasn’t enough. Not yet. Maybe not in time.

And there _were_ people in place to help protect others. Thomas was just one guy.

He’s pulled out of his thoughts at the sound of another one of his Sides rising up. Patton appears on the other side of the table, his arms crossed over his chest and a vaguely disapproving look in his eyes. Out of the corner of his eye, Thomas thinks he sees Virgil roll his eyes.

“Kiddo,” Patton says to Virgil carefully, even as he casts a quick glance at Thomas, “you’re coming across kinda harsh there.”

“But I’m _right_ ,” Virgil replies insistently. He huffs a frustrated sigh. “Listen, all Thomas is doing is putting himself in harm’s way when he doesn’t even need to. Why not leave this up to the authorities?”

Patton’s expression softens slightly. “Because Thomas has the ability to do something. He should use it.”

“Why? Just because someone _can_ doesn’t always mean that someone _should_ , Patton.”

It’s another good point. Thomas still doesn’t quite understand why Virgil was coming forward with these arguments now as opposed to earlier, but he supposes it doesn’t much matter. Maybe because Virgil felt that the web shooter formula made the whole thing feel a lot more real and sudden. Thomas certainly felt that way. Maybe that feeling was stemming from Virgil.

“It does if it means doing a good thing,” Patton insists.

Virgil seems to bristle slightly. “If a cat is stuck in a tree and you don’t know how to _climb_ a tree, what do you do? You call the fire department. You don’t risk hurting yourself in an effort to get the cat yourself when you aren’t qualified to do it.”

“But Thomas can climb a tree.”

“It’s a metaphor.”

“I know, but even in the metaphor. Thomas has abilities, Virge.”

“So that makes him qualified to get involved?” Virgil stops for a moment and takes a deep breath. Some of the edge is gone from his voice when he speaks again, but the underlying frustration hasn’t left. “Thomas is in over his head. And I don’t want him to get hurt tackling a fight that isn’t his in the first place. Sometimes you have to pick your battles, Patton. Why does Thomas have to choose _this_ one?”

The question is met with silence.

Thomas slips his hands into the pockets of his jeans and glances down at the linoleum floor between his feet. He studies the specks of blue amidst the white as if it will distract him from the tension in the room. The web fluid gurgling in the flask on the table between the three of them is the only sound for a long, uncomfortable moment. Virgil’s question seems to echo in Thomas’s head.

When Thomas finally glances up, Patton is looking at Virgil with something soft in his eyes. “Because it’s the one given to us. Maybe we _don’t_ get to pick the battles, kiddo. Maybe… we lost that luxury when Thomas got these powers.”

“That’s not fair.”

Patton sighs. “It’s not. But with great power, comes great responsibility.”

Thomas swallows and nods. He speaks quietly, despite the weight he can feel settling in his chest. “And it’s my responsibility to do what I can to help. I… have to at least _try_.” He glances up at Virgil. “I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t give it that much.”

Thomas can see the tightness in Virgil’s jaw; something he can’t place flashes quickly through his eyes. “It’s not just Thomas at stake, you know. If he gets involved, he puts everyone he loves at risk. _None_ of us want that.”

The reminder squeezes something in Thomas’s chest. “That’s why we’re making the suit, Virgil. To protect me _and_ my loved ones.”

Even as he says it, though, he realizes Virgil’s point. The suit would only do so much. He looks around in the lab and realizes suddenly that he was putting Dr. Washington and Andrew at risk by involving them like he had. He’d almost asked Dahlia about advice on his suit construction and no matter how vague he’d been planning to keep it, it was still _involving_ her. It was still putting her at risk, putting everyone at risk.

He had to stop. Nobody could know his identity, but nobody could be involved in this fight, either. Not unless Thomas was willing to risk his friends’ lives, and that… that wasn’t a price Thomas would ever be willing to pay.

“This… is _my_ fight,” Thomas says, his voice tight. Patton and Virgil both look over at him. “But it’s mine alone. After today, nobody else gets involved. I can’t…” Thomas thinks about the look of raw fear in the hostages’ eyes during the bank robbery and the tearful, desperate reunion between Mikey and his mother. “I can’t take that risk.”

He sees Virgil opens his mouth but he’s cut off by the _ding_ of the timer beside Thomas. The host blinks a second, forgetting for a brief moment what the timer had been set for in the first place. Then his gaze focuses on the flask in front of him. _Right_ , Thomas remembers suddenly. _Web fluid._

The timer meant that he needed to take it off the heat. Cool it down—which would occur quickly—filter and wash with C12H8O2, then add silica gel to purify the substance and… theoretically, it would be complete.

The rest of the process would take about five minutes. And then, well… Thomas could leave. He could keep Andrew and Dr. Washington from knowing the final product and maybe that would help protect them. When Thomas looks up again from the flask, Virgil and Patton have both left.

Thomas stands alone in the lab and keeps himself busy for the next several minutes walking methodically through the rest of the process. He can’t help his quick glances at the clock and the door, silently pleading that Andrew and Dr. Washington are at least longer than five minutes away. Thomas works in silence, but he barely realizes it. He just wants to finish this and get out as fast as he can.

He adds the silica gel and stirs it quickly with a glass rod. He can’t help the bubble of disbelieving laughter that bubbles in his chest as he watches the fluid react to the purifying process and oxidation, attaching to the glass rod as he pulls it out. The substance forms a cloudy-colored web of adhesion. It stays attached as Thomas tries to pull the glass rod out. It’s strong. So strong, in fact, that Thomas can’t pull it out.

Thomas grabs the other flask of the same substance that they’d had on stand-by (in case Thomas had been wrong about the filter liquid or the silica gel), and pours it into a vial with a stopper. He stashes some silica gel and C12H8O2 in separate vials. He shoves them into the outside pocket of his backpack before quickly shedding his lab coat.

Before he races out of the lab, he leaves a note and enough change to cover the dinner he wouldn’t be eating.

_Had to rush out. Thanks for the help. -Thomas_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would love to know what you think so far! <3


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter gave me occasional fits, but I think I like how it turned out. A lot of work in this one, and a lot that happens. Thank you for your patience! Please let me know what ya thought, it always means a lot to me. <3 Edited by yours truly so all mistakes are mine. Grateful to creativenostalgiastuff on tumblr for her help in a few places, and always for her listening to me rant and work through ideas for this fic.

A few days later, Thomas drags a large cardboard box into his apartment and kicks the door closed behind him.

“Is that the stuff for the suit?” he hears Roman ask behind him, excitement bubbling in his voice.

The corner of Thomas’s mouth quirks a little. “I think so.”

He’d spent the last few days since leaving the lab poking around cosplay and seamstress forums online, looking for advice on fabrics, designs, and anything else he may need. He’d told Joan that he was dealing with a “personal emergency”, telling himself it wasn’t a _total_ lie. He knew Joan would be curious, but also that they’d respect his privacy and most likely leave him be. They’d texted back a general message of support that really only left a tight feeling in Thomas’s chest. He suggested they work on a new “Historic Heroes”—a video he didn’t _need_ to be present for.

He’d been mostly ignoring his phone ever since, instead throwing himself and his attention into research. Once he felt like he had a pretty decent idea of what to do and what to use, Thomas placed the rush order.

“And you got the colors I requested?” Roman asks, arching an eyebrow.

“It should be, I think.”

Thomas grabs a knife from the kitchen and slices the box open before returning it to the drawer. He feels a nervous kind of excitement settle in his stomach as he riffles through the red, blue, white, and black fabrics. He tests the weight of one of the bundles, pleasantly surprised that the reviews about it being highly durable but relatively light seemed to at least be partly true. Virgil had been especially skeptical.

“Well then,” Roman exclaims, clapping his hands, “let’s get to work! No time to waste. It’s time to channel _Edna Mode, darling_.”

His mouth quirks briefly at the Disney reference. Thomas rubs the back of his neck. “Right.”

He can’t help but be reminded of when he was younger, trying to make cosplays that woefully paled in comparison to the others at the conventions he’d attend. It had been fun—and definitely a learning experience—but Thomas remembers their comparative inadequacy in a way that leaves prickling doubts the back of his mind. The images and sketches that had taken shape in his mind with the input from his Sides were clear and extremely detailed. Could he really construct something like that?

Roman frowns at the lack of enthusiasm. “What?”

Thomas sighs and glances at Roman. “This just… takes me back to the cosplay days.”

“Ah,” Roman says, nodding and glancing away as his cheeks color slightly. Thomas feels the reminders of his previous failures press a bit more insistently against his mind. “Yes, I suppose that’s mostly my fault.”

The sound of another Side rising up grabs both of their attention. Logan appears beside Thomas, his eyebrows quirked slightly. “Need I remind you both that Thomas has come quite a long way since then. He has observed and assisted Talyn, Joan, and Dahlia in costume construction for videos. Not to mention the significant quantity of research I had Thomas put into this particular… project, prior to the arrival of materials. You are well-equipped for this particular undertaking.”

Roman blinks. “I, uh… thanks, Teach.”

Logan inclines his head. “Of course.” He turns to Thomas. “Considering this particular part of the suit construction falls largely in Roman’s domain, I will leave you both to it. Thomas, if you get to mechanical construction of the web-shooter, I would be happy to assist.”

“You’re calling them web-shooters too, now?” Thomas teases lightly.

Logan sighs and waves a hand. “Begrudgingly. Though not the most accurate term to use, it is more concise one and nevertheless conveys the meaning.”

Thomas smiles. “Sounds good, Logan.” The Logical Side glances from him to Roman and back again before sinking out with a nod.

Thomas rifles through the notebook with the measurements and design sketches. Roman peruses the familiar design—it had been mostly his ideas, after all—as Thomas gathers measuring tape, scissors, an X-acto knife, needles, and pencils. He clears his living room floor, lays out the fabrics, and starts measuring out the various pieces.

It’s quiet work, for the most part. Thomas plays music to fill the silence around them, and Roman hums along quietly as he reads off the measurement numbers to the host. Thomas stretches out on the floor on his stomach as he marks the lengths off with a pencil. Roman lays with his back on the floor and his legs up on the couch. Thomas glances at him, smiling with a certain fondness when he notices Roman sticking his tongue out slightly in concentration.

“What about the piece along the shin?” Thomas prompts.

“Red or blue?”

“Red.”

Roman flips a page and reads off the measurements, his foot tapping against the couch to the beat of the song playing.

Thomas had always been appreciative of Roman’s presence in his life. When he’d been a child, Roman had been the one to paint images of dragons to be slayed and castles to be defended as Thomas ran around the backyard with a stick that Roman convinced him was a sword. As Thomas got older, Roman adapted; grand make-believe in his backyard gave way to spotlights and songs. Acting had been a chance to exercise Roman’s ability in ways that proved to pay off far more than Thomas would have ever expected.

In some ways, Thomas wondered if going into social media as a career had been as much a curse for Roman as it had been a blessing. Roman took even more of a forefront in Thomas’s life as the driving force behind the content he produced, first through Vine and then through YouTube. Roman had greater room to produce and develop ideas, but that carried a weight on his shoulders to which Thomas was not blind. His livelihood depended, in no small part, on Roman’s ability to produce and perform.

It’s one reason why Thomas was both eager and grateful when Joan expressed an interest in getting more involved in Thomas’s YouTube career. It meant the weight on Roman may be a bit more manageable. Roman himself had even seemed excited at the idea; “another brilliant mind to share and explore ideas” had been his prevailing cry when Joan first pitched the idea, and behind the bravado, Thomas had seen the faint hint of relief in his eyes.

A few hours after they’ve started, Thomas has nearly all the pieces measured out. Roman cranes his neck back and looks at the host upside down.

“Thomas, I have an idea.”

Thomas glances up. “What’s that?”

Roman drops the notebook onto his chest and spreads his hands out in front of him in a grand sweep. “A cape.”

“A cape?”

“Yes. A cape. I think it would be a great statement piece to add to the outfit, Thomas.”

 Thomas rolls his eyes fondly. “What happened to channeling Edna Mode?”

Roman opens his mouth, pointing a pencil at Thomas, then closes it. He tries again. “But a cape—”

Thomas teasingly throws the thread at him. “No capes!” Roman throws his hands up to block the projectile with a yelp.

The Creative Side kicks his legs off the couch and rolls to be laying on his stomach, much like Thomas is on the other side of the pile of fabric. Thomas glances up and smiles at him as Roman folds his arms in front of him and rests his chin in the crook of his elbow.

“Time to cut the pieces out, I guess.”

Roman groans and buries his face in his arms. “This is the boring part, isn’t it?”

Thomas shakes his head and sets to work.

…

It’s pressing into late afternoon when Thomas hears his phone ring. Roman glances up across from him, a pin sticking out from his lips as he holds a pincushion in his hands. Thomas reaches for the device, feeling his stomach squirm uncomfortably as Joan’s face lights up his screen.

Roman pulls the pin out of his mouth. “Are you going to answer it?” he asks lightly.

 _They’re probably worried_ , a voice that sounds a lot like Patton tells Thomas. But it comes with a note of hesitation. He’s not saying to answer it. Thomas chews on his lip, and then presses the answer button before he can lose his nerve entirely.

“Hello?”

“ _Hey.”_ It’s definitely Joan. “ _Was just calling to check up on you. We haven’t heard from you in a while. Wanted to make sure everything was okay.”_

“Yeah,” Thomas says lamely, rubbing the back of his neck. There’s a tight feeling in his stomach that he can’t ignore. “Sorry.”

“ _It’s cool_ ,” Joan says, but Thomas has known them long enough to hear the concern in their voice. “ _I don’t wanna pry. But… y’know. If you need me… I’ll be there.”_

Thomas swallows past the small lump he can feel forming in his throat. “Yeah. No, I… I appreciate that.” There’s a pause. Thomas doesn’t know what else to say, even though he can feel Roman’s quiet gaze watching him carefully.

Joan clears their throat. “ _I won’t keep you. Hang in there, okay, man?”_

“Yeah,” Thomas says thickly. “Thanks.” Another uncomfortable pause that seems almost like hesitation, then a click. Thomas groans, letting the phone slip from his hands into his lap. He buries his face in his hands.

 _It’s better if they don’t know_ , a voice in his head says. Thomas can’t quite figure out of it’s Patton or Virgil, but it doesn’t matter. They’re right, after all. Joan is safer this way.

“Thomas?” Roman asks from across him. Thomas sighs and shoves one of his hands back through his hair, shaking his head.

“I’m fine,” he says hollowly. He doesn’t miss the skeptical glance Roman tosses his way, but the prince doesn’t say anything. Thomas is grateful. “Let’s just get back to work, okay?”

Roman inclines his head. “As you wish.”

Thomas queues up music again to fill the silence around them as Thomas busies himself with pinning fabric together. The music is predominantly Disney with the occasional showtune—a fact that Thomas blames Roman’s presence for, though he hardly minds—and he hears his Creative Side humming along once again as he watches Thomas.

But the internet personality can take the pseudo-silence for only so long. He can feel Virgil’s nervousness like a looming shadow in the back of his mind as the conversation with Joan replays in his mind. Did they hate him now? Did it even _matter_ if they did? He was keeping them safe. Joan could hate him all they wanted, as long as they were safe, right?

Thomas can’t take the thoughts he can feel spiraling and clears his throat to grab Roman’s attention. “So,” he says, desperate for a distracting conversation, “um… how are you?”

Roman stares at him, his brow furrowing in confusion. He shrugs, flashing a bright smile. “I’m trip-a-little-light fantastic!”

Thomas realizes that it’s perhaps a silly question to ask part of himself, but it also occurs to him that he hadn’t really had a chance to _talk_ to Roman since everything had started to change. At least, not one-on-one. Roman had been present, of course, but Thomas hadn’t really checked in on how all the changes might be affecting his Creativity. As stupid as the question may have sounded, Thomas suddenly does want to know the answer. The _real_ answer.

“No, I mean—” Thomas sticks a pin in his mouth as he pinches two pieces of fabric together—“how are you with all the… changes?”

“Oh,” Roman says. He rubs the back of his neck and shrugs. “I’ll admit it was a bit, ah, unexpected. But all things considered, it’s pretty cool.”

Thomas quirks an eyebrow. “Cool?”

Roman’s mouth tugs into a small grin. “I mean, it’s basically a dream come true. You’re a _hero_ , Thomas.”

There was that word again. _Hero_.  Roman had called him that the night he stopped Al Trevors from robbing the bank. News and social media threads threw the word around freely, along with others. But Joan’s comment from over a week ago rings in his head: _it depends on what you mean by the word in the first place_.

“You think I’m a hero?” Thomas asks.

Roman is flipping through the notebook again. He doesn’t look up as he answers Thomas like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Of course you are. You’ve got special powers now, and you fight bad guys.” He waves a hand. “Even Specs would agree that’s pretty much the textbook definition of a hero, Thomas.”

It certainly seemed like a cut-and-dry way to define the term. Thomas supposes there’s a certain comfort in that—in the simplicity of it. The odd, discomforted feeling in Thomas’s chest stirs in the way it always seemed to when someone attached the label to him. For a brief moment, Thomas finds it frustrating. Roman certainly seems to think the meaning of it all is pretty obvious. He wants to believe him. He wants something about this whole “Spider-Man” business to come easily to him, for once.

Not like the whole sticking thing. As the thought crosses his mind, Thomas sees Roman glance at him.

“Perhaps in a few hours we can go practice,” he offers.

The suggestion surprises Thomas. All the times Thomas trained, Roman usually ended up even worse for wear than Thomas himself. The Prince was usually the first part of him that would get frustrated, and the last part that would be willing to give up. Thomas had known it was Roman’s function of being his Ego and Pride that was ultimately to blame for the strange dichotomy of emotions, but Roman had certainly demonstrated his ability to be stubborn and—by extension—drive Thomas to be the same way.

The internet personality also knew that the frustration stemming from repeated failure wouldn’t get better until the failure itself abated. And _that_ wouldn’t happen if Thomas didn’t at least keep trying, right?

“Probably a good idea,” Thomas replies with a small smile.

…

A little over a week passes.

Thomas spends his time during the day working on the suit and finishes it after four twelve-hour days. When he tries it on for the first time, Thomas can’t help the small swell of self-pride in his chest. It fits perfectly. It’s flexible. It seems durable. He stands in front of the full-length mirror with the mask part removed and stares at himself in the “Spider Suit” as Patton and Roman had taken to calling it for nearly half an hour, making different poses. He tests the sticking ability through the suit on the wall of his bedroom, surprised when it works. It’s a clumsy attempt, however—Thomas grimaces when he crashes to the ground as he tries to pull his hand free.

He spends the next several days with Logan developing the web-shooters. The design Logan proposes to him is admittedly complex. There’s a pressure sensor that rests in his palm and requires a tap to release the fluid, a double tap to cut the fluid off. The sensor connects to a nozzle that releases the web-fluid through a spinning chamber that gives it the web-like consistency before being propelled outward.

It’s a lot of trial and error. Thomas is grateful for the few mechanical engineering classes he took while in college that helps him and Logan both during the process. Thomas quite literally falls out of his chair when they actually get a working prototype on day 4 of the web-shooter development.

He spends the evenings during the week back at the same warehouse, running both old and new routines that Logan directs and Roman pushes him through. Virgil and Patton usually sit on top of one of the shipping containers, watching and chiming in occasionally. He’s grateful for the occasional pun or snarky quip that makes Roman huff and Logan roll his eyes, if only because it alleviates the growing tension as they all start to realize that Thomas seems to be… getting _worse_ at the whole “sticking” thing.

It’s nearing the end of the week when Logan finally voices what they’d all noticed. Thomas squirts water into his mouth from the water bottle as Logan flips through his notes with a frown. “I’m afraid I can’t quite offer an explanation, Thomas.”

 Virgil leans forward, propping his elbows on his knees with his hands clasped in front of him. “What do you mean? Aren’t you kind of the explanation guy?”

Logan sighs. “Over the course of the past eight days, Thomas’s attempt to success ratio seems to be significantly lower than it was over a week prior. There’s no reason to believe it’s related to the suit’s construction, though, which was my first hypothesis.” The Logical Side’s mouth sets into a thin line. “Thomas has trained this week both with and without the suit, and it’s had no bearing on Thomas’s success or failure.”

“That’s good news, at least,” Roman says half-heartedly.

“Is it?” Thomas and Virgil both say at the same time.

“Well, sure!” Patton chimes in, much brighter than Thomas feels. “It at least means that the work we’ve put in the past week hasn’t been setting us back any. And I think that counts for something.”

Thomas offers a small, discouraged smile to his Moral Side. “I appreciate the optimism, Patton.”

“Yeah, but even if it’s not the suit, _something_ is setting Thomas back.” Virgil jumps down from his perch on the shipping container, shoving his hands into his pockets once he lands. “Slow progress was still progress. But this is the opposite of that now.”

“Correct,” Logan adds with a nod. He looks to Thomas. “What has been different about the past week that was not true in weeks prior?”

Thomas huffs a sigh and shrugs. “I don’t know, Logan. Maybe I’ve been more tired than normal, from working on the suit and web-shooters?”

Logan hums, glancing back through the notes. His gaze narrows in thought. “I suppose that’s possible…” he says, as if to himself. “Though it’s interesting that your control of an ability such as this would be affected by your circadian rhythm. It seems… improbable to me. But nevertheless.”

“I guess Thomas should get a good night’s rest tonight and we can see if it helped tomorrow?” Patton plays with the sleeves of his cat hoodie as he makes the suggestion.

Logan nods. “Indeed. However, I was hoping that we could do a trial run of the web-shooters before we depart for the night. I want to make sure the bracing design will not break under gravitational force.”

“Or break Thomas’s arm in the process,” Virgil adds, shooting a finger gun to the Logical Side.

“Yes, that too.”

Thomas feels the lingering tension from the discussion of his recent set-back ease out of his shoulders as he pulls the two identical devices out of his bag and snap them onto his wrists. He’s grateful for the change in conversation, and for the chance to maybe focus on something they _did_ make progress on. From the nervous way Roman watches him attach the web-shooters to his wrist, he has a feeling that Roman could benefit from the shift in focus, too.

Thomas tests the device on his right hand against the shipping container directly in front of him. There’s a faint _thwick_ followed by a metallic _thud_ as the web shoots out of the device and attaches to the side of the large storage space. Thomas grins, pulling his wrist up closer to his face to examine the thick rope of web that links his wrist to the container.

He tries his left hand. _Thwick. Thud._

“Try pulling the container towards you, Thomas,” Logan suggests.

The internet personality wraps his hands around the webs shooting out from his wrists, plants his feet, and pulls. The metal container shrieks against the flat concrete floor, but it slides surprisingly easily towards him. Thomas taps his palms twice to release the webs and jumps straight up as it slides towards him. One hand catches the edge of the top, and Thomas pulls himself up to the top of the container with ease.

“Okay, that’s pretty cool,” Thomas admits, his small grin growing. He turns his wrists over and back, marveling a bit at the design and its apparent success. He spins around, glancing around the warehouse. He spots some of the scaffolding set up in the ceiling and takes off running, kicking off the shipping container as he shoots a web towards it.

It attaches as Thomas leaps, and he grabs the web with both hands as he swings out into an aisle between containers. He hears Roman let out a cheer—something like _way to go, Specs!_ —and pulls himself up a bit on the swing. He double taps to release the web and shoots another as he falls. He feels Virgil’s sudden, commanding presence in his mind as he falls but it eases when the second web attaches to another pieces of scaffolding.

“This is awesome!” Thomas can’t help but announce with a laugh. He does it again, swinging his momentum around to the left. He lands on top of a stack of containers. His weight wobbles for a second before he rights himself.

His four Sides appear on top of the stack with him as he sits on the edge and dangle his legs over. Patton sits beside him. Virgil sits on the other side.

“No pain in your wrists?” Logan inquires from behind him.

Thomas squints up at him silhouetted against the fluorescent lights. “None, actually.”

“Satisfactory.”

“Better than that,” Thomas insists, looking back down at his wrists. “This was an awesome idea, Logan. Thanks.”

“All in a day’s work,” Logan replies, but Thomas hears the small smile in his Logical Side’s voice.

Roman groans dramatically, and Thomas feels the container shake as he sprawls out behind them. “I don’t know about you all, but I am ready to sleep for twelve hours.”

“That would not be ideal,” Logan replies disapprovingly, “seeing as approximately eight hours is the ideal amount of time for Thomas to sleep in order to maintain healthy circadian—”

“It was hyperbole, doc.”

“I am not a doctor—”

Thomas tunes out his Sides’ bickering when he hears a quiet _ding_ from his pocket. He sees Virgil glance at him out of the corner of his eye as he fishes his phone out of his pocket.

“Did you have that in your pocket the entire time?”

Thomas gives him a sheepish smile.

Virgil rolls his eyes. “You’re lucky it didn’t break.”

Thomas lifts a hand in mock surrender. “I forgot.” He glances down at the screen and feels his stomach suddenly sink at the notification. Logan and Roman both fall abruptly silent. It’s a generic Twitter notification; the kind that Thomas would usually ignore. This time, he can’t.

_TRENDING: The elusive Ekko releases a new video._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would love to know your thoughts! ^u^


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this took me forever and a half. A chapter that seemed to resist being written. Shout-out to Google Maps for being a clutch resource for this chapter. A lot happens, I think. Hopefully it's a fun read! Edited by yours truly, so all mistakes are mine.

He can feel his Sides watching his phone over his shoulder as he opens the YouTube app. None of them say anything, but he can see Virgil biting at his thumb nail and Patton tugging on the sleeves of the cat hoodie around his shoulders. He can feel Logan and Roman’s presence from behind him.

The video is on the trending page when Thomas pulls the app up. He takes a deep breath.

“It’s… better to know, right?”

“I have always believed so, Thomas,” Logan answers him, soft and calm.

“Right.” Thomas nods once. He clicks on the link.

The video starts the same as the last one. Flashes of blood and violence and chaos are spliced together between static. It’s too fast for Thomas to make sense of it really. There’s a high-pitched drone sound over the static that gets louder and louder. Thomas wants to cringe away from it, but he can’t take his eyes off the video playing out in front of him.

 Thomas can feel Logan and Virgil lean closer. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Patton look away.

“Thomas,” Logan and Virgil say at the same time.

The host focuses his attention back on the video as the realization sets in. The images are getting more… familiar. He feels ice sink in his stomach. It’s Cinderella’s Castle from the Magic Kingdom. Hogwarts from Harry Potter World at Universal. An aerial shot of Sea World. Each image is less than two seconds each, but Thomas recognizes them immediately.

“Orlando,” he says aloud.

The images keep coming, the drone sound getting louder. An airport. A plane. Numbers and letters: GW8102.

Then everything stops. A feminine voice—the same one from the previous video—speaks from a dark screen. “Three hours.” The video ends.

Thomas scrolls quickly to find when the video had been posted. Only half an hour ago.

“What happens in two and a half hours?” Patton asks in a voice that is unusually absent of his bright cheerfulness.

“Nothing good,” Virgil replies darkly.

“GW8102,” Logan mutters, as if to himself. “GW8102…”

“Logan?” Thomas glances at him over his shoulder. Logan has his brows pulled together, his gaze distant in thought. His Logical Side holds up a finger, frowning.

“I am trying to deduce the significance of those numbers and letters—”

“It’s a flight number,” Roman cuts in, causing Logan to look up and stare at him. Roman shrugs a shoulder. “The images right before it had been an airport and an airplane. I mean, a flight number makes sense in the framing of that video, doesn’t it?”

Logan purses his lips as Thomas smiles. “I suppose it does, Roman.”

Roman casts an uncertain glance at Logan. Even he seems to have sobered from his previous elation at Thomas’s success with the webshooters. He’s busying himself with pulling at a stray thread on the cuffs of his sleeves, his elbows resting on his knees.  “The real question is why _that_ flight number. The Orlando airport sees hundreds of flights in a day. Why would Ekko target that specific one?”

“Why indeed,” Logan muses quietly. “And why in three hours, from the video’s first posting? Why not now? Why not later?”

Thomas glances again at his Logical Side over his shoulder, who meets his eyes with quiet steadiness. Logan may not be the part of himself that is prone to sentiment, but Thomas finds a certain comfort in him right now. There was a steadiness about his Logical Side that Thomas had always been grateful for; perhaps now more than ever. He notices suddenly that the other Sides around him are also looking to Logan.

Logan simply raises an eyebrow at the internet personality.

Thomas understands. He pulls up the web browser on his phone and searches flight information for the Orlando International Airport. He jumps down from the shipping container as it loads, landing easily on his feet and slinging his backpack over his shoulder. He scrolls through the options that come up and is most of the way out of the warehouse when he finds it under “arrivals”.

In two hours and fifteen minutes, Flight GW8102 is scheduled to arrive in Orlando.

…

Two hours later, Thomas pulls into the airport parking garage. He grabs his backpack from the backseat and slings it over one shoulder, rushing towards the entrance and locking his car with the key fob over his shoulder. He’d noticed the increased security in the area a few miles before he’d reached the airport: more police cars, more officers around the entrance terminals, a SWAT van down by one of the gates. Thomas can’t say he’s surprised, exactly. He knew he wouldn’t be the only one to piece together that Ekko was threatening the airport.

Thomas slows his steps as he sees the entrance flanked by two TSA agents. One of them stands up from where he’d been sitting on a stool by the door, holding out a hand towards the internet personality to stop his advance. Thomas slows, his gaze flickering between the two agents with uncertainty.

“Sorry, sir,” the one still sitting says. “The airport is on lockdown for the time being.”

“Oh,” Thomas replies. “I was just coming to pick up my cousin. Her flight arrives in a few minutes.”

The one standing in front of him is unconvinced. “You’re going to have to wait out here for her, then.”

Thomas’s gaze flickers through the sliding glass doors that haven’t opened to the clock in the center of the lobby area. Flight GW8102 arrives in fifteen minutes.

“She doesn’t speak English,” Thomas tries. “I don’t know that she’ll be able to read the signs to find—”

“I’m sorry for any inconvenience, sir,” he says, not sounding sorry at all. “But we cannot let you in the building.”

Thomas holds up his hands. He can’t be mad at them. They’re just doing their job, and they’re making the right call. Thomas knows that if he were in their shoes, he’d be doing the same thing. He’ll just have to come up with a backup plan.

“I understand,” he says sincerely. “I’ll just let her know I’m waiting in the car.”

The one that stood up seems to relax as Thomas backs away. He nods once, crossing his arms over his chest. Thomas adjusts the strap of the backpack on his shoulder and turns without another word. He hurries past the rows of cars under the low clearance levels of the airport parking garage. Sickly yellow light illuminates the area around him, and his sneakers scraping against the cement floor seem to echo oddly in the nearly empty garage. It’s a little past midnight, after all.

He unlocks the backdoor of his sedan and jumps in the backseat, pulling it closed behind him.

“Thomas,” Patton’s voice from the front driver’s seat chimes in as Thomas nearly breaks the zipper of his backpack trying to pull it open, “What are you doing?”

“Plan B,” Thomas grits out as he toes off his shoes and pulls the Spider Suit out of the backpack. He clumsily grabs the back of his shirt and pulls it over his head and shoulders. His feet kick against the door as he shimmies out of his jeans and then starts to pull on the Spider Suit.

It’s awkward and uncomfortable. The back of his car is a cramped space and he’s all too aware of the ticking clock. He doesn’t have time.

“What exactly _is_ plan B?” Virgil asks from the passenger seat as Thomas shoves his feet into the bottom of the suit.

“Improvise,” Thomas replies, knowing it’s not what his Anxious Side wants to hear. The internet personality pulls at the zipper in the back, then grabs the webshooters. He clips them into place.  He slips on the zip-up hoodie—it’s darker than the suit, and Thomas figures it would help blend into the darkness a bit—and shoves the mask part of the suit into the hoodie pocket.

He takes a breath.

Thomas goes to grab the door handle and tumble out of the car when Virgil’s voice stops him. “Thomas. The security camera.”

“What?”

“Security camera. Eight o’clock.” Virgil jerks his thumb towards the back of the car. Thomas glances out the window and sees the small black orb suspended from the ceiling.

“Shit,” Thomas mutters under his breath. He rolls the back window down a fraction, aims carefully, then shoots a web at it. The corner of his mouth twitches in satisfaction. He rolls the window up and rushes out of the car. He finds a ledge towards the east side of the garage and perches on it.

Thomas breathes in. He breathes out. He grabs the mask and tugs it over his face.

…

Orlando International Airport is large. The central part had three levels, and 139 gates were divided by four different terminals, each of which separated from the central part of the airport itself by a railway. The flight was scheduled to land and dock at Gate 3, which was Terminal 1, northwest from the central part of the airport. Much too far for Thomas to walk and reach in time, Logan reminds the host.

Thomas flips the hood of his sweatshirt up as he runs across the network of streets that branch into different drop-off points for the airport. He does his best to keep to the trees and bushes in the spaces between the lanes of traffic, grateful for the cover of night. He climbs one of the trees as he reaches the three-lane highway, above which sits one of the railway tracks. It’s just barely out of his reach. He jumps, shooting a web at the metal. He prays that he’ll stick as he uses the momentum to latch himself onto the underside of the railway. An electrical charge runs through the top of it, and though Logan suspects his suit is thick enough to absorb the shock, Thomas isn’t eager to find out.

He just hopes the railway is still running.

He notices in the brief moment of stillness around him that he hasn’t seen or heard a plane take off yet tonight at all. He supposes it’s not surprising. Thomas had been listening to the national news radio on his drive in case they updated the situation. Reports had indicated that Orlando had grounded and canceled all flights coming in or leaving the airport until tomorrow. But reports had _also_ indicated that attempts to contact the pilots of Flight GW8102—to urge them to land somewhere else—had been met with radio silence.

Thomas had wondered along with the news anchors if things may have already gone wrong on the flight.

The air is still around him, and unsettlingly quiet. He supposes that makes sense for nearly midnight, but Thomas can’t help but feel like every nerve in his body is on edge. He realizes suddenly that he really doesn’t know anything at all about what is going to happen tonight. He still doesn’t know why Ekko is targeting that specific flight. Was it because of someone _on_ the flight? Possibly. They hadn’t released the passenger list for that flight yet as a security concern. Was it because of something being transported on that flight independent of the people on it? Maybe, but Thomas couldn’t imagine what might be allowed on a commercial flight that would be worth all this.

Thomas wonders, for not the first time tonight, if he’s even really needed here. The airport had certainly upped their security. The entire nation—maybe even the world—was aware of the target. What could Thomas do that couldn’t be done by others?

 _Nobody asked you to be here. You don’t have to do this_ , a voice whispers in his head. Thomas can’t quite place it, but he thinks it’s Virgil. _You can just go home, guilt free._

Thomas’s fingers slip from the metal and he frantically shoots a web from both wrists to keep himself attached. He blinks hard behind his mask and shakes his head as his balance rights itself.

  _I have to try to help_ , Thomas tells himself, right as he feels the rail above him begin to vibrate. He looks up, seeing the railway leave the central airport and head for the terminal. Thomas uses his existing webs to swing back and forth, gaining momentum as the train gets closer. He flips up as the train approaches, releasing his webs and landing on top of the speeding railway.

Thomas huffs a surprised breath as he sticks on top of it. _Okay_ , he can hear Roman saying in his head, _that was pretty cool._

The internet personality watches the blur of trees and the network of small waterways that encircled the airport and ran under the railway. The water is dark, reflecting the night sky above it. Everything is dark, really, and Thomas does his best to press flat against the top of the railway as it speeds closer to the terminal. He can already make out security guards and military personnel patrolling the gates, watching the skies and one another.

 _Thomas_ , Logan says suddenly as the terminal gets closer. _It is likely they have increased their security at major checkpoints as well._

 _Okay,_ Thomas thinks. _So?_

 _He means you’ll get shot if you don’t get off before it pulls into the terminal,_ Virgil interrupts. _So **jump!**_

Thomas reacts on instinct, jumping up as the train slides into the station and tumbling ungracefully onto the roof of the terminal. The clumsy landing forces some of the air from Thomas’s lungs, and he takes a second to get it back. He lays flat on the roof and stares up at the sky.

He hears it, then he sees it. From the shouting across the terminals and runways, the security personnel have noticed it too. The unmistakable sound of an airplane approaching, and blinking lights in the distance. Thomas swallows.

The flight is here. Right on time.

Thomas rolls to his feet and hurries across the roof towards the gate the flight is scheduled to arrive at. He’s careful to avoid the parts of the roof that are glass skylights—both out of an irrational distrust of their ability to hold his weight and an effort to remain unseen—and he does his best to remain crouch low without losing too much of his speed. The roar of the airplane engine is nearly deafening. He can see shouting between security and the people waving the lights to direct the plane, but it’s lost to the wind. Thomas flexes his grip, shifting to the balls of his feet as the plane comes into sharper focus, and then lands on one of the runways.

The roaring plane engine dies down to a quieter rumble as it makes its way through the maze of runways despite the yelling and gesturing for the plane to stop all together. Thomas doesn’t miss the uncertain, confused glances the armed personnel share as the plane continues to ignore the shouted demands to stop. Some of them click the safety off their weapons, and Thomas’s heart jumps to his throat.

_There are innocent people in there. Please don’t shoot them._

The plane seems to move extraordinarily slowly now. Thomas doesn’t know if the plane is actually moving slower than normal or if it just seems that way. For all the frantic energy that had been coursing through Thomas’s veins since seeing the Twitter notification, the plane seems to lack that same sense of urgency. Thomas is both grateful and confused when the plane finally comes to a stop in the middle of the terminals, lit up against the dark in stadium lights, stopping before actually reaching a gate as a number of the security personnel had formed a human blockade in front of it.

There’s a beat where nothing happens. Wind licks at the edge of Thomas’s hood. The plane seems locked in a stalemate with the collection of armed guards that are surrounding it. Thomas waits with baited breath, his muscles coiled for whatever is about to happen next.

To his surprise, the plane makes the first move. Thomas watches the door open, a flight attendant standing in the entryway, looking confused as far as Thomas could tell. She starts a little and holds up her hands as several of the guards instinctually train their weapons on her.

“Don’t move!” one of them shouts, stalking forward towards the plane without lowering his weapon. The flight attendant says something in return, but it’s too quiet and Thomas is too far away to hear it. As far as Thomas can tell, she doesn’t seem aggressive.

A small squad of military personnel pull a set of stairs up through the blockade and set it by the plane’s now-open doorway. Thomas counts how many armed guards rush up the stairs and into the plane. Six of them. Thomas hears startled screams and shouts of alarm from inside the plane even from this distance.

“I don’t like this, Thomas,” Patton says, rising up beside him. His voice is unusually tense. “Something about it seems… wrong.”

Thomas nods a little. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “I know.” Six people storming a plane seemed… excessive, even though they had every reason to believe there was some kind of threat on board. And the flight attendant’s bewildered expression certainly seemed off-base from what Thomas expected when the door opened.

“This is bad,” Virgil adds, rising up on the other side of Thomas.

Thomas glances at him out of the corner of his eye, his mouth pulling into a grim line behind his mask. “Well, glad you and Patton can agree on that much.”

Virgil looks up at him, his brows furrowing. “What do you mean?”

Thomas shakes his head a little, then shrugs. “I’m just glad you guys are still getting along after that argument in the lab.”

“What argument?”

Thomas looks at him, Virgil’s evident confusion only serving to feed into Thomas’s own. The host opens his mouth to respond when movement by the plane grabs his attention again.

Two of the armed guards are dragging out an older gentleman. Thomas guesses he’s in his mid-seventies, with a receding, graying hairline and freckled skin. He tries to pull out of their grip but is too aware of the number of weapons trained on him to try very hard. Thomas’s brows pull together in confusion. The man has light eyes and a steely resolve, but he doesn’t seem particularly dangerous to Thomas.

They push the man further from the plane and Thomas sees another figure emerge from the plane. Another gentleman, older than Thomas and younger than the first man. Thomas guesses he’s in his late thirties. He’s in a suit. Dark hair. Thomas recognizes him, but it takes him a moment to place the face. A second later, it clicks. The governor of Florida.

The soldiers force the first man to his knees. Even from this distance, Thomas swears he can hear the safety click off on the weapons.

 ** _THOMAS, DO SOMETHING!_** Patton and Virgil shout at the same time in his head.

Thomas doesn’t think twice. He fires and releases two webs at the closest individuals with guns before jumping down from the roof. One of the webs hit and covers the barrel of the gun, the other misses and hits the side of the plane with a loud, vaguely metallic _thud_.

“Hey!” Thomas shouts, desperate to get their attention away from two men in danger. Thomas steps out of the shadows and into the bright lights that illuminate the pavement of the surrounding gates. He sees most of the soldiers whirl around to train their weapons on him. He has to remind himself to take a breath.

“If you’re going to shoot someone,” Thomas says in a voice much more calm and steady than he feels, “then shoot me.”

A different voice speaks up. This one from behind Thomas, up on the roof where Thomas had just been standing. “That can be arranged.”

The voice is the same rich, feminine alto from the video. In the dark, behind the lights, Thomas sees a faceless figure, covered head-to-toe in white, standing exactly where Thomas had been not seconds ago.

 _Ekko_.

**Author's Note:**

> I would really love to know what you thought! I've got a lot of ideas and big plans for this fic, so I hope you all enjoy the ride!


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